County Cablevision May Be Sold to Largest Operator

Ventura County Cablevision, which serves 70,000 households throughout the county, apparently is about to be acquired by the nation’s largest cable operator.

Ventura County Cablevision is part of a group of cable systems that Tele-Communications Inc., based in Englewood, Colo., says it will purchase from The Chronicle Publishing Co.

Chronicle, publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, plans to sell all its cable systems to the Colorado company. In all, the systems being sold serve about 330,000 customers, mainly in California.

Ventura County Cablevision has 90,000 subscribers, about 20,000 in Los Angeles County. The rest are in Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Ojai and other parts of Ventura County.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but the companies said the acquisition should close by January, pending government approval. Chronicle is privately held.