Time Warner said in March it will spin off its Time Inc. magazine operation. Owning both broadcast and cable channels is gaining importance as media companies compete for licensing fees from pay-TV systems. Time Warner and CBS are each at a disadvantage compared with News Corp., Disney and Comcast Corp.'s NBC Universal, which have broadcast and cable properties that increase leverage in talks with pay-TV systems. Disney, owner of ABC and ESPN, collects the most of those fees — about $12.7 billion a year in the U.S. — based on estimates by SNL Kagan. Time Warner, by comparison, collects $3.6 billion annually. Expanding those fees is central to Time Warner Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes's growth strategy, said a person with knowledge of the CEO's thinking who requested anonymity because the plans are private. "There's an advantage to having scale when you come into renegotiations if you have more content to sell," Mr. Harriss, with Rye, New York-based Gabelli, said in a phone interview.