Time Warner shares soared more than 12% in trading Friday amid reports that the entertainment giant is in advanced talks to merge with AT&T.

Time Warner shares spiked so fast that trading was briefly halted just before 11 a.m. ET for about 10 minutes. Time Warner surpassed its 52-week high and was hovering around $93 at noon ET. The stock settled down later in the day to close at $89.48, up 8%. AT&T shares dropped 3% on the news, closing at $37.49.

Word of the talks between Time Warner and AT&T surfaced Thursday evening. Reps for both companies have been tight-lipped since then. There has been speculation that a stock deal for Time Warner would have to be somewhere north of the $100 a share range — talk that the market seems to agree with given the stock’s run since the news surfaced.

Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes has asserted that Time Warner — home of Warner Bros., HBO and Turner — did not need to grow to remain competitive amid a fast-changing landscape for its core businesses of film and TV. But the talks with AT&T underscore that the entire industry is poised for another round of consolidation.

The wind at Time Warner’s back seemed to have a halo effect on other media stocks, with Fox ($25.91, up 2%), CBS ($57.66, up 2%), Viacom ($37.51, up 3%), AMC Networks ($50.81, up 4%) and Netflix ($127.50, up 3.3%) all showing gains. Comcast ($64) was an exception albeit with a less than 1% dip.

The union of Time Warner and AT&T would create a content and distribution powerhouse that would resemble Comcast’s mix of cable, broadband and content through its NBCUniversal arm. AT&T is known have plotted to grow its portfolio of content assets after cmpleting its $48 billion acquisition of satellite TV giant DirecTV in July 2015.

There had been industry chatter about the potential for a tie-up of Time Warner and CBS Corp. But CBS parent National Amusements effectively nixed that notion earlier this month by publicly urging CBS to consider a merger with Viacom, also controlled by National Amusements, and expressly stated in a public letter that it would not consider third-party offers for CBS Corp. or Viacom.

In 2014, Time Warner fended off an unsolicited takeover offer at $85 a share from 21st Century Fox. Time Warner rejected that offer as too low, but the overture had the effect of making Time Warner seen as a ripe acquisition target. Apple is also known to have flirted with the idea of a deal with Time Warner, although the sides never made it to the stage of formal talks.

For Time Warner, a deal with AT&T would come 16 years after the company sealed its ill-fated marriage with AOL in what was then the largest corporate merger in U.S. history.

(Pictured: Time Warner chairman-CEO Jeffrey Bewkes)