Appeal Signals Clinton Stance Toward Media Mega-Mergers : Telecommunications: Justice Department renews its pledge to oppose judge’s ruling allowing Bell Atlantic to offer telephone and cable service in same area.

In an indication of the Clinton Administration’s stance toward the mega-merger between Bell Atlantic and Tele-Communications Inc., the Justice Department reiterated Friday that it would appeal a federal judge’s decision allowing local phone companies to provide cable TV service in their operating areas.

The appeal is not enough of a threat to derail the merger, but it could influence the operations of the merged corporation and hamper other cable TV-telephone company combinations. Analysts have predicted that the Bell Atlantic-TCI merger is just the first among many such alliances in coming years.

Vice President Al Gore as well as Attorney Gen. Janet Reno have said there will be a review of the proposed alliance, which is valued at up to $30 billion.

On another front Friday, Bell Atlantic Chairman Raymond W. Smith said his company had no intention of joining in QVC Network Inc.’s rival bid for Paramount Communications, owner of the giant Hollywood movie studio. QVC is being helped in its bid for Paramount by TCI.

“We just completed the biggest merger in history and so we don’t want to invest any more money at this time,” Smith said on the TV show “John McLaughlin’s One on One.” “At this time we’re not interested in making an investment directly into a studio,” Smith said.

QVC Chairman Barry Diller reportedly is close to securing a $500-million investment by Cox Enterprises, an Atlanta-based media company, to sweeten his bid for Paramount.

On the legal front, Federal Judge T. S. Ellis in August found that the federal law which prohibited Bell Atlantic from offering cable TV service within its operating region was unconstitutional.

Bell Atlantic, which serves five mid-Atlantic states and Washington, sued the federal government last year claiming that the prohibitions violated its right of free speech.

The court victory was significant because Bell Atlantic is among the most aggressive of the Baby Bells that wants to build fiber-optic networks both inside and outside its service area that would provide a wide array of interactive TV and telecommunications services.

The Justice Department appeal signals, however, that the Clinton Administration may want to keep telephone service and cable TV separate businesses within any one region.

TCI and Bell Atlantic officials earlier in the week said they would sell the TCI cable systems within Bell Atlantic’s service area in order to ease possible antitrust concerns. But Bell Atlantic also has indicated that it might start up separate cable operations in the area.

Judge Ellis later amended his August decision to say it only applied to Bell Atlantic because the other Baby Bells were not a party to the suit. He said that other telephone companies wold have to file separately to appeal the overlap prohibition.