• by Wayne Friedman , June 4, 2015

Dish Network and T-Mobile look to join the race among TV providers and telecommunications companies in potential mergers, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal says the two companies are in talks about a deal in which Dish Network  would be chairman and John Legere would be CEO.

Dish, a longtime satellite TV provider, has been acquiring much communications spectrum, which could benefit T-Mobile, a phone/communications company, when it comes to helping smartphone technology.

T-Mobile had been part of a potential deal a few years ago with AT&T. But regulators put the kibosh on that agreement for fear of it being anti-competitive in the telecommunications space.

Analyst expect a potential Dish and T-Mobile merger would have an easier time in that both companies are not in each other’s businesses.

Charter Communications, the fourth-largest U.S. cable operator, and Time Warner Cable, the second-biggest cable operator recently announced a deal to merged the companies for $56.7 billion. A merger of the companies, which have similar TV and phone/communications assets, would result in the third-largest pay TV provider in the U.S.

This also comes as AT&T’s $48.5 billion potential merger with DirecTV, announced over a year ago, looks to complete its federal regulatory hurdles. That merger could close at the end of this month. More recently, Verizon made a potential $4.4 billion offer for the big internet company, AOL.