NBC Steps Deeper Into Cable TV : To Buy Part of Program Service, Offer Shows of Its Own

NBC, moving further into the cable-TV business, said Monday that it has signed a letter of intent with two companies to buy the Tempo Television cable program service. The network also said it hopes to begin two new cable services, one offering financial and business news, the other sports programming.

Last month, NBC announced a deal to produce a half-hour children’s series, “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” for a national pay-TV service, the Disney Channel, which says it has nearly 4 million subscribers.

In announcing the new venture, NBC said its letter of intent is with Denver-based Tele-Communications Inc. and Tempo Enterprises Inc. of Tulsa, Okla. The latter company owns Tempo Television, which has 12 million subscribers.

Under NBC’s proposed deal, TCI, a cable company that is planning to buy Tempo Enterprises, would sell Tempo’s program service to NBC, said Betty Hudson, a spokeswoman for the broadcast company.

The price was not disclosed. Hudson said the companies expected to complete the deal by late May or early June.

NBC and TCI also reached an agreement under which NBC said it “would expect” to launch its two new cable operations on the Tempo Television cable service. Tempo now offers programming aimed at viewers over age 45.

May Bow This Year

TCI, which operates cable systems in 40 states, also would offer the new NBC cable services on both its own cable systems and to its affiliated cable systems, which serve a total of 8 million subscribers, NBC said. NBC also would seek to place its service with other cable operators, Hudson said.

NBC’s proposed financial and business news cable service, using staff from NBC News, would operate during the business day on weekdays. Its sports service would operate on evenings and weekends and would include live and taped coverage of sports events around the world.

NBC said it anticipates that both services will premiere late this year or early in 1989.

The company’s new agreement comes at a time when it is aggressively seeking new business opportunities in the face of rising audiences for cable and declining ones for network television.

In a speech in Los Angeles last month, NBC President Robert C. Wright Jr. said that while network TV remains his company’s “core business,” there is a need for NBC to find “new avenues of business and profit.”

He also noted the growing power of cable TV, which currently is in about 51% of the nation’s 88.6 million households with TV.

The cable venture announced Monday is not a first for NBC. It already owns, as does ABC, part of the Arts & Entertainment Channel, having inherited that when NBC and its parent company, RCA, were taken over by General Electric in 1986. ABC also owns 80% of the ESPN sports channel. CBS once owned but later dropped a cultural cable channel and currently has no involvement in cable.