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Bloomberg News reports Time Warner Cable may face a proxy fight to force a sale of the company to Charter Communications. In turn, Comcast will pay Charter billions to take control of Time Warner Cable subscribers in the northeast and North Carolina. Industry analyst Craig Moffett predicts Comcast’s deep pockets may infuse billions in cash to sweeten Charter’s offer. It also means Comcast is not interested in buying all of Time Warner Cable itself. (3:11)

Comcast Corporation and Charter Communications are actively working on a deal to let Comcast acquire Time Warner Cable subscribers in New York, New England, and North Carolina, according to sources reporting to CNBC.

The split-up of Time Warner Cable is contingent on a successful takeover bid by Charter Communications, which would quickly sell the systems in the three regions to Comcast for an undisclosed sum.

CNBC reports Comcast and Charter are close to agreeing on terms, but Time Warner Cable and Charter remain far apart on the terms of Charter’s takeover bid.

Comcast’s involvement in the deal could inject much-needed cash into a takeover bid financed largely by debt. It might also prompt Charter to sweeten its offer for TWC.

Comcast’s interest in the northeast and mid-Atlantic region is not surprising. The cable company already has a large presence in eastern Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. Time Warner Cable is the dominant cable company in New York, western and northern New England, and North Carolina.

Charter would likely keep Time Warner Cable’s operations in Texas, California, the midwest and south for itself if it succeeds in a takeover.

Charter has reportedly has hired Innisfree M&A, a proxy solicitor, to prepare for a possible proxy fight with Time Warner. Innisfree specializes in convincing shareholders to agree to proposed mergers and acquisitions.

Liberty Media, which has a substantial ownership interest in Charter Communications, is also appealing directly to Time Warner Cable stockholders and is planning to run its own slate of candidates for Time Warner Cable’s board of directors. Should Liberty-nominated candidates attract a majority of votes at the annual shareholder meeting in May, the new board members are expected to quickly approve a sale of the cable company.

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Comcast Corp. is near a deal to buy New York, North Carolina and New England cable assets from Charter Communications, Inc. if shareholders approve Charter’s takeover bid for Time Warner Cable Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said. Alex Sherman reports on Bloomberg Television’s “Money Moves.” (3:28)

Time Warner Cable customers looking for Al Jazeera America in New York are forgiven if they can’t find it. Time Warner Cable initially exiled the network to Channel Siberia — Channel 181 — between Univision Deportes and Shop Zeal, a shopping network that couldn’t draw flies.

But starting this week Time Warner has agreed to move the news network to Channel 57, evicting a Manhattan public access channel relocated elsewhere. Al Jazeera America’s new neighbor is HLN – home of Nancy Grace and a more irreverent light news lineup.

The contrast between HLN and Al Jazeera America could not be more clear. While HLN and other news channels spent hours covering last week’s arrest of pop star Justin Bieber, Al Jazeera America mentioned the arrest only in passing, noting the network is dedicated to hard news, increasingly hard to find on other cable news channels.

Al Jazeera America’s ratings are still a fraction of other news outlets on the cable dial, but the network is planning a promotional blitz to introduce itself and explain the difference in coverage.

Time Warner Cable currently carries the news channel on its cable lineup only in New York and Los Angeles, but subscribers nationwide can watch the channel on TWC’s TV Everywhere app – TWC TV, available for home computers, Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Roku, XBox 360 and Samsung Smart-TVs.

Cat nap while holding.

A Time Warner Cable technician replacing a defective cable modem was left on hold with the cable company so long, he fell asleep on the customer’s couch.

While the customer waited in another room, he could hear the technician calling Time Warner Cable’s customer service line to register and activate the new modem.

“I could hear the hold music from his call because he had it on speaker and eventually after about 15 minutes of listening to it from the other room, I walked out to find him like that,” writes the Reddit user DrinkingWhiteRussian. “Before doing anything, I grabbed my phone and snapped the pic, and then said ‘Excuse me?’ He startled a little bit, pointed to his phone and said ‘Sorry man, still on hold.'”

About 10 minutes later, a representative finally appeared on the line and presumably activated the modem. Only after the technician left did the customer realize nobody bothered to register the all-important MAC address in Time Warner’s system, which forced the customer to call and start the process all over again. After more lengthy hold time, a national Time Warner rep transferred the call to a local Time Warner office, which promptly transferred the customer back to the national call center.

“The guy that I got this time saw that they had never deactivated the original modem that was replaced,” says the disgruntled customer. “I despise Time Warner.”

One former Time Warner Cable tech explained many Time Warner Cable techs now call the same customer service line you do, and if you have ever been left on hold forever, so have the company’s own technicians and installers.

“I’ve spent up to an hour on hold after I completed a job just waiting to talk to someone in the call center so they can flip the switch and turn on your equipment,” wrote the former technician.

It isn’t known if the napping technician is a Time Warner Cable employee or one of their contractors.

Thanks to our regular reader PreventCAPS for the news tip.

Time Warner Cable executives, as part of a defense strategy against a takeover bid from Charter Communications, made clear it intended to boost Internet speeds for customers without any help from Charter Cable.

The cable company has been criticized for offering only a maximum of 50/5Mbps service in most of its markets, but company officials made it clear the maximum speed available to most customers will be increased this year to 100Mbps in many areas and 300Mbps in selected cities — likely those facing competition from Verizon FiOS, AT&T’s fiber-based U-verse in Austin, and Google Fiber in Austin and Kansas City, where it competes with Time Warner Cable.