MURDOCH, TCI TRYING TO BUILD SPORTS NETWORK.

Byline: Farrell Kramer Associated Press 

Gunning for ESPN's audience of sports aficionados, Rupert Murdoch and partner Tele-Communications Inc. are in negotiations to form a new national sports network.

The two hope to challenge the entrenched cable sports network by buying a stake in Cablevision Systems' sports properties and using that relationship to assemble a giant. Cablevision owns seven regional sports channels, the New York Knicks and Rangers, Madison Square Garden and the MSG Network, a regional cable network.

Already 50-50 partners in Fox/Liberty Networks, Murdoch and TCI's Liberty Media programming arm plan to create a broad network offering both games and sports news by combining their own regional sports networks with the Cablevision assets.

The partners would be able to broadcast coast to coast, letting them negotiate for national sports programming rights and win lucrative national advertising contracts.

Talks are fairly close to completion, and a deal could come as early as Monday, one source close to the deal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday. The purchase, according to published reports, would cost $850 million and involve a 40 percent stake in the Cablevision properties.

The new network, which will take the name Fox Sports Net, would have broadcast rights to about 40 sports teams and will reach about 55 million viewers in all major markets.

News of the discussions comes as TV programmers scramble to get their shows on cable systems - and in front of viewers - as available channels become harder to find.

``If you look at an environment of 500 channels, the question is how do you get people interested and get them to pay for all those channels?'' said Dennis McAlpine, a media and entertainment analyst at the brokerage firm Josephthal, Lyon & Ross. ``One of the areas they're definitely interested in is sports.''

Fox and TCI, through their joint venture, already own sports channels in cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington and Dallas.

The new network represents yet another scuffle in the mad scramble for media assets. Just last week, Cablevision announced it was increasing its presence in the New York area by buying 10 cable systems from TCI, the nation's biggest cable company. The deal pays TCI with a 33 percent stake in Cablevision.

Further, the Cablevision sports properties themselves were acquired by the Woodbury, N.Y., cable company through a buyout of partner ITT Corp., which was forced to sell them to defend against a hostile bid from Hilton Hotels. That $650 million deal was completed this week.

Fox and TCI outbid ESPN parent Walt Disney Co. for Cablevision's properties, some published reports said. Fox parent News Corp., Cablevision and TCI all declined to comment on the deal.

The big question for TCI and Fox is how well a new sports cable network can compete with ESPN. Right away, the fare will be a bit different, with Fox and TCI building on their existing schedules of local and regional games.