Cablevision- US West Talks Break Down : Media: Value of cable-TV operator could not be agreed on, executives close to the discussions say.

US West Inc. and Cablevision Systems Inc. ended talks about an investment by the telephone company when they were unable to agree on the value of the cable-television operator, executives close to the discussions said.

US West had mostly recently considered investing about $800 million for a third interest in Cablevision, valuing the nation’s sixth-largest cable company at about $2.4 billion, executives said.

The breakdown in talks slows US West’s aggressive push into cable television. Last year, the regional Bell company spent $1.2 billion to buy cable systems in Atlanta, and it invested $2.5 billion in Time Warner Entertainment, a unit of Time Warner Inc., in 1993.

“The time, money and effort [needed] to turn cable systems into telephony-bearing networks is starting to hit hard,” said Daniel Briere, president at TeleChoice Inc., a Verona, N.J.-based market research firm.

Shares of Cablevision Systems fell $1 to $63.75, giving the company a market value of $1.5 billion. US West shares closed unchanged at $44.375.

The executives said they would not rule out restarting the talks between US West and Cablevision. There is no timetable for further discussions, though, they said.

Englewood, Colo.-based US West has aggressively pursued cable TV as a means to reach customers outside its traditional 14-state phone market.

Woodbury, N.Y.-based Cablevision has 2.6 million subscribers in 19 states, and 1.4 million in the New York metropolitan area alone. It also owns Rainbow Programming Holdings Inc., which offers American Movie Classics, Bravo and the Sportschannel cable TV networks.

Cablevision also has plans to enter the local phone market. It is offering phone services to businesses on Long Island and plans to provide resident phone services in the future.

Spokesmen for both companies would not comment about the status of the talks.

The talks also stumbled over who would be the controlling partner, the executives said.

US West was to buy the rest of the company in two to five years. However, the companies could not come to terms about when US West would buy the remainder of Cablevision and how much it would be worth.

The talks then shifted to US West’s purchasing the entire company outright. Disagreements about the value of Cablevision once again caused the new round of discussions to collapse, the executives said.

“All the veneer is peeling off the attractiveness” of cable-phone alliances, Briere said. “Everybody is just slowing up tremendously.”

The Cablevision Systems investment was a piece of a greater puzzle for US West, involving a restructuring of its 25.5% stake in Time Warner Entertainment, the purchase of cable properties in major metropolitan areas, and an alliance with a long-distance company.

“If US West truly views this as strategic--linked to other important alliances it expects to do--I wouldn’t be surprised to see these talks resurface,” said Blake Bath, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.