COMCAST PICKS DISNEY AS PARTNER TO BUY E.

Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services

Walt Disney Co. is expected to team with Comcast Corp. to buy control of cable's E! Entertainment Television, the celebrity news network behind ``Talk Soup,'' for $320 million from Time Warner Inc., a published report said Monday.

Daily Variety, citing unnamed sources, reported the deal could be announced this week.

Comcast, the nation's fourth-largest cable operator, disclosed on Jan. 10 it had won the right to buy Time Warner's 58.4 percent stake in E! for about $320 million and would decide by early February whether to proceed. Comcast is one of five cable operators that are partners in E! and owns 10.4 percent.

Variety said Comcast will control 51 percent of the companies' interest in E!, which offers celebrity news, general entertainment programming and its nightly re-enactment of O.J. Simpson's civil trial. It reaches more than 40 million cable subscribers, close to two-thirds of all such viewers.

The three other cable-company partners in E! are Tele-Communications Inc.; Continental Cablevision, owned by U S West Inc.; and Cox Communications Inc.