Consortium to Buy Cooke Cable TV System

Billionaire Jack Kent Cooke on Friday agreed to sell his Woodland Hills-based cable television system with 675,000 subscribers to a consortium of six companies. A similar deal had fallen apart in March.

Cooke, whose businesses include the Daily News in Woodland Hills and the Washington Redskins football team, did not reveal the sales price of Cooke CableVision and sister company 1st CableVision. But cable industry analyst Paul Kagan in Carmel said he had heard estimates of $1.6 billion, or $2,400 a subscriber, which is in line with previous cable sales.

About a year ago, Cooke lost out in the bidding for Rogers Cablesystems. At that time, Cooke said cable systems were overpriced and that he planned to sell his holdings, Kagan said. The consortium members include Intermedia Partners of San Francisco; Tele-Communications Inc. of Denver; TCA Cable TV Inc. of Tyler, Tex.; Falcon Cable TV of Los Angeles; Chambers Communications Corp. of Eugene, Ore.; and a group controlled by the John Rigas family of Pennsylvania. Two members of the original consortium, Hawk Cable and Rock Associates, had dropped out.

Cooke and the consortium had struck a tentative agreement in January to sell the system for an estimated $1.5 billion, or $2,300 a subscriber. But Cooke pulled out of the deal apparently because Centel Corp. had just sold a cable system that fetched about $2,400 a subscriber, according to Kagan.

After the sale, which must receive federal approval, Cooke’s system will be split among consortium members.