Westinghouse May Strike Deal With CBS by Midweek : Television: Formal bid did not come Sunday, contrary to expectations. Ted Turner says he should not be counted out.

Westinghouse Electric Corp. did not make a formal bid Sunday for CBS Inc. as many executives inside the network had expected, but several sources said they thought a deal might be announced by midweek.

Michael H. Jordan, the chief executive of Westinghouse, flew home to Pittsburgh, Pa., after a six-hour meeting in New York Friday with Laurence Tisch, chairman of CBS and a 20% owner of the network.

“Jordan doesn’t like working weekends,” said one source close to the negotiations by way of explaining why a deal was not nailed down. Talks are expected to resume today.

The diversified Pittsburgh-based company has been talking with CBS for several months about a purchase. Westinghouse has lined up $2 billion in financing in recent weeks to make what is expected to be a $5-billion bid for the network, at a price of $80 a share.

CBS has been for sale for much of the past two years, though most interested parties have choked on the $80-a-share price and all-cash terms demanded by Tisch. Many potential buyers say CBS would require a huge investment to raise it from fourth place in key demographic rating categories and to make it competitive with rivals in alternative forms of distribution such as cable and new-media.

Most investors assume Westinghouse will meet Tisch’s asking price to preempt a bidding war.

Even so, Ted Turner--the mercurial founder of Turner Broadcasting System who for years has lusted for CBS or another established network--said he should not be counted out.

As he accepted a career achievement award in Pasadena on Friday from the Television Critics Assn., Turner joked that his next month could be busy if he acts on all the rumors floating about his company: “I have to button up the King World deal; buy Goldwyn; finalize the purchase of Time Warner’s share--that’ll be more than $1 billion; raise $2 billion in debt and another $3 billion in equity for CBS; take a last pass at ABC and NBC, all in 30 days,” he said. “I can do all that.”

And if he can’t complete those chores in time, Turner said, he will just wait and buy Westinghouse--which, he said, would be in need of a rescue because of its weak financial footing even before adding $5 billion to its $3.7 billion in existing debt.

The rumblings are a Turner classic. “Ted typically tries to drive up the price of an asset through his body language, hoping that, if he can’t get it the first time round, he’ll have another chance because the buyer has to overpay,” one television industry executive said.

All joking aside, most financial experts doubt Turner is in a position to mount a bid for CBS. His biggest obstacle is Time Warner, which owns 19.4% of Turner Broadcasting and has opposed the company’s efforts to buy a network.

Time Warner has been trying to unload the Turner stake to pare its huge debt, but it has kept the price too high to attract buyers. Time Warner’s asking price is $30 a share, or $1.6 billion, despite Friday’s closing price of $20.50 for Turner shares.

Turner’s other large shareholder, Tele-Communications Inc., which owns a stake of about 20%, is interested in Time Warner’s share, but not at a 50% premium to the market.

Turner has been negotiating recently to buy King World, a New York-based syndication company with the rights to such hits as “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune.” Although Turner has been building up his syndication business, analysts say his real interest is in the $500 million in cash on King World’s books, which he could use to buy out Time Warner, freeing him to launch a bid for CBS. However, Wall Street sources said talks have broken down over how each company would be valued in a stock swap.

Barry Diller, who almost merged his QVC home shopping company with CBS last summer, has called Tisch’s $80-a-share asking price astronomical. The price is also too rich for Walt Disney Co., which has played cautiously since its misadventure outside Paris with Euro Disney, the money-losing theme park.

But Turner--who almost went bankrupt after buying the MGM film library in the ‘80s--has rarely let price get in the way of expansion.

Executives close to him say $100 million in expenses would fall to the bottom line by merging CBS’ news gathering operations with those of Turner’s Cable News Network. And Turner, a sports fan and owner of the Atlanta Braves, is frustrated that he cannot compete for rights to the biggest sports events because of cable’s limited coverage.