CABLE-NEWS BID FALTERS

NBC News may not get the commitments it needs from cable-TV operators by Jan. 31 to start its proposed cable-news service and may look at other alternatives, NBC News President Lawrence E. Grossman said Sunday.

The network has “no expectations,” however, of re-opening talks with Ted Turner, who last month rejected NBC’s $200-million offer for partnership in Turner’s Cable News Network, Grossman added.

NBC wanted editorial control of that proposed joint venture, “and that ended up being the breaking point,” Grossman said at a press conference at the Century Plaza.

While NBC has commitments from cable operators serving more than 2 million homes, he said, “I still think it’s a long shot whether we’ll be able to get the threshold number of 13.5 million (homes) that we need by the end of this month.”

NBC says that is the minimum number it needs to start a cable news service in competition with CNN. It has set a Jan. 31 deadline for deciding whether it would start its own service in July.

However, Grossman said, if NBC’s proposal falls through, that doesn’t mean the network will stop trying.

“My own sense is that so much of what we do can benefit from our involvement in a cable-news operation that we are willing to look at a whole bunch of alternatives,” Grossman said. He declined to elaborate.