The cable companies believed to be interested in buying Time Warner Cable has made for a "rather frothy experience," Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge told CNBC on Tuesday.
Charter—backed by John Malone's Liberty Media—has been unsuccessfully trying to court Time Warner Cable for months. Both Cox Communications and Comcast are also said to be considering bids. Comcast owns NBCUniversal and CNBC.
But on "Squawk Box," Rutledge said, "Charter doesn't need to do any acquisitions to be a successful company."
He said he had wanted to buy Charter when he was at Cablevision: "Cablevision was generating about $450 of operating cash flow … per home that it was capable of serving. Charter generates about $225."
"The difference between those two numbers if the opportunity that Charter presents," Rutledge argued sitting next to Liberty CEO Greg Maffei who said the potential opportunity around consolidation makes "an attractive Charter, more attractive."
"Time Warner [Cable] is relatively unique because it's not controlled by a family; and it's large; and they have a management transition going on," Maffei explained, adding that those factors have led to speculation about transactions."
This summer, TWC lost a public fight with CBS over price increases for programming, which started Aug. 2, when talks broke down and CBS, Showtime and other CBS-owned channels were blacked out in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and other smaller markets. It took a month to resolve.
—By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere. Follow him on Twitter @Matt_SquawkCNBC.