Cable: Turner Broadcasting System Inc. will consider...

Cable: Turner Broadcasting System Inc. will consider at its mid-February board meeting whether to launch a 24-hour sports news network to challenge Capital Cities/ABC Inc.’s ESPN, according to Turner executives. The service would be spun out of Turner’s Cable News Network in the same way that the CNNfn financial news channel was. CNNfn started in December. The development was first reported Monday in Advertising Age. Industry sources say the move would be a defensive measure to strengthen CNN against competing 24-hour cable news channels now in the works or being considered by all four broadcast networks. Turner Broadcasting now carries sports events on its TBS and TNT cable channels and covers sports news on its CNN and Headline News channels. If a proposed merger of Turner and Time Warner Inc. goes through, Sports Illustrated magazine, owned by Time Warner, could offer news resources. The new channel could pose a sticky situation for John Malone, a key Turner shareholder who as chief of Tele-Communications Inc. recently formed a pact with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to launch a competitor to ESPN.