TCI Will Buy Virginia-Based TeleCable : Television: The $1.4-billion deal is further evidence of the No. 1 cable company’s desire to expand its reach.

Tele-Communications Inc., the nation’s biggest cable television company, will buy TeleCable Corp., the 18th-largest, in a deal valued at more than $1.4 billion, the companies said Monday.

TCI has agreed to give TeleCable shareholders stock valued at about $1.2 billion and will assume about $250 million in debt.

The deal provides another example of TCI Chief Executive John Malone’s ambitions to expand the reach of his company despite critics’ complaints that he already wields far too much influence in the cable industry.

Malone’s defenders say his company must grow in advance of expected competition from telecommunications companies that will deliver video, phone and other services to homes.

TCI is the runaway leader among cable system operators. It has about 10.5 million cable subscribers and owns wide-ranging interests in cable networks ranging from Cable News Network to the Home Shopping Network.

It recently agreed to increase its stake in the shopping channel operator QVC Inc. and reportedly is talking about a cable systems venture with the entertainment company Viacom Inc.

TeleCable, a privately owned company that owns cable systems in Norfolk, Va., has about 740,000 subscribers and generated $300 million in revenue last year.

TeleCable operates in 15 states in the South and Sun Belt, and many of its systems are near systems operated by TCI, such as in Dallas, Kansas City, southern Florida and Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.

The research firm Paul Kagan Associates in Carmel said TeleCable was the 18th-largest U.S. cable operator as measured by subscribers on March 31.

Under terms of the deal, TeleCable shareholders would receive more than 41.6 million shares of TCI CLass A common stock plus preferred stock that could be converted into 10 million more shares of TCI common stock.

TCI Class A stock fell 31.3 cents a share to $22.75 a share in Nasdaq trading. At that price, the TCI stock involved in the deal would be worth about $1.17 billion.

The merger requires approval of TeleCable shareholders, franchise authorities and other regulators.

TeleCable shareholders would own 7.6% of TCI.

The deal comes only five days after TCI shareholders approved the cable company’s absorption of Liberty Media Corp., the cable program company it divested a few years ago.

With TCI’s blessing, Liberty joined Comcast Corp. last week in a sweetened bid of $1.42 billion for the 65% of cable shopping channel operator QVC of West Chester, Pa., that they didn’t already own. QVC accepted that offer.

There have also been reports that TCI is talking with New York-based Viacom about creating a joint venture to run Viacom’s cable systems, which have about 1.1 million subscribers.

Federal Communications Commission rules prohibit any company from serving more than 30% of the roughly 90 million U.S. homes with cable. Cable system owners are challenging the rule in court.

TCI is believed to reach between 20% and 22% of the homes serviced by cable systems, while TeleCable and Viacom are believed to reach fewer than 3%. That would still leave TCI under the 30% threshold.

Richard Roberts, TeleCable’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview that TeleCable managers felt the company needed to merge with a larger company to remain competitive amid fast-moving regulatory and technological changes.

Chairman Frank Batten founded TeleCable in 1964, and Roberts joined the company four years later when it had about 14,000 subscribers.