NBC Confirms Loss at Network : * Television: The red ink is expected to total up to $70 million, and affiliates are told there are plans to drop Saturday cartoons.

NBC President Robert C. Wright disclosed Thursday that the network will lose between $60 million to $70 million this year, marking a stunning financial reversal for the network that has dominated the ratings race for six seasons.

At a meeting here with leaders of NBC’s local affiliates, Wright also announced that the network next fall will walk away from the industry tradition of Saturday morning cartoon programming, introducing a new Saturday edition of the “Today” show and expanding a roster of live-action programs targeted at older children and teen-agers.

NBC affiliates are meeting privately with network executives this week to discuss a wide range of issues, including whether NBC should accept condom advertising and permit the use of controversial “900” telephone numbers in TV commercials.

The pending loss acknowledged by Wright in a brief interview with The Times would be nearly triple what most analysts had projected. “It’s more money than you and I could lose at poker,” the executive joked in a brief interview.

NBC earlier this year had indicated that it would be marginally profitable. And as recently as last year, analysts estimate, the NBC TV Network earned $225 million in operating profits.

Since then, a national advertising recession--combined with expensive entertainment program renewal deals, costly sports contracts and news coverage from the Gulf War--caused the network to go into the red.

Still, thanks to the network’s six owned-and-operated TV stations, NBC will make a profit this year, although down perhaps nearly 70% from a 1989 peak of $603 million. By contrast, analysts expect the ABC television network to make $75 million to $100 million this year and the CBS network to lose $110 million to $125 million, before sports-related writedowns of $322 million.

Uppermost in many affiliates’ minds at the desert meeting is the constant swirl of rumors that NBC’s darkening financial picture may cause its parent, General Electric, to sell the network after more than five years of ownership. Paramount Pictures is most frequently mentioned as the buyer.

Wright, for the third time in seven months, publicly denied that the network is for sale, but he would not comment about the Paramount rumors.

Senior industry sources insist, however, that General Electric and Paramount have had what one termed “pre-negotiation” discussions about an NBC/Paramount “alliance,” although the details are unclear.

According to these sources, Paramount is interested in acquiring or becoming a partner in the network’s entertainment division, but not the news and sports divisions. The sources say the discussions quickly became bogged down after the parties could not resolve complicated regulatory and financial problems that would stymie any studio-network merger.

Eric Bremner, chairman of the NBC affiliate board, said the affiliates and network were looking for new ways to operate “under the stress of changes in the business.”

Those changes are shaking the foundation of the television business as the networks and their affiliates lose viewers and advertising dollars to cable, independent stations and the Fox network. Signaling just how desperate things have become, the words “survival” were scribbled in large block letters on an easel in the hotel room where the affiliates were meeting.

No hosts have been named for “Saturday Today,” which will debut Aug. 1, during NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Broadcast live for two hours in each time zone, the show will be followed by two hours of live-action, youth-oriented programming. Besides offering a counter to the cartoons on other networks, NBC expects the new programs will be more cost-effective.