GROUP W TO SELL Z CHANNEL

The Z Channel movie programming service, owned by Group W and available to many cable subscribers in the Greater Los Angeles area, is up for sale, company officials announced Wednesday.

Group W chief operating officer Joel Cohen, in announcing that Z Channel was on the block, said that the company wanted to “concentrate efforts” on development of its cable systems throughout the United States. Z Channel is Group W’s only major programming service; the company also owns the Uptown service, which operates on a much smaller scale in Group W’s Manhattan cable franchise.

“Z Channel is a programming service which we think has a lot of opportunity that we’re not ready to develop,” Cohen said, adding that Z has been commercially successful. The service, based in Santa Monica, also is highly respected for its mix of foreign and art films, mainstream Hollywood hits and interviews with prominent actors and film makers.

Cohen and other officials insist that Z is not being sold, as was earlier speculated, as part of a move by Time Inc. to reduce competition with its Home Box Office subsidiary, the nation’s largest pay-cable service. Time, via its American Television and Communications division, one year ago became a co-owner of Group W’s cable systems along with Tele-Communications Inc., Comcast, Century Southwest Communications and Daniels & Assoc.

Z is available to cable subscribers in Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Newport Beach, Ontario, Pasadena, Santa Monica, West Los Angeles and portions of the San Fernando Valley, among others.