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Viacom Puts HTS Network on the Block


 
Viacom Inc. said yesterday that it will sell Home Team Sports, the valuable Washington regional sports cable television network, as part of the $91 billion merger of Viacom and CBS.
Viacom Inc. said it will combine CBS Cable and MTV Networks as part of the deal but has no desire to own several parts of CBS Cable, including HTS; the Midwest Sports Channel, which serves Minneapolis and Milwaukee; or the advertising services firm Group W Sports Marketing.
Viacom started to look for an HTS buyer even before the merger was finalized, MTV spokeswoman Carole Robinson said, adding that there are "several interested buyers," which she declined to name.
CBS Cable owns 66 percent of Bethesda-based HTS, with the other 34 percent held by Fox Sports Net, which is assembling a group of regional cable sports networks throughout the United States and would be one logical purchaser.
Robinson, CBS Cable spokeswoman Cheryl Daly and Jody Shapiro, a senior vice president of CBS Cable Sports and HTS's general manager, all declined to speculate on the value of HTS.
HTS has contracts with the Washington Wizards pro basketball team, the Washington Capitals hockey franchise and the Baltimore Orioles baseball team to carry their games through their respective 2006 seasons. The network has 4.7 million subscribers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, where it provides telecasts of national games as well as games for a variety of regional teams.
As for the decision to sell, Daly said MTV "has not been in sports and it's not a business they plan to get into."
Shapiro said Viacom decided HTS "was a very good business and had good relationships between its people and the teams" it has contracts with. "But they decided it's not a strategic asset."
He predicted that "viewers will be as well served if not better [under new ownership] because they'll want to own it and will have the customers at heart."
The Viacom-CBS merger brings together some of the biggest names in the world of entertainment and television, including MTV, CBS, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, UPN, Blockbuster, VH1, Showtime and the Simon & Schuster publishing house.
Sumner M. Redstone, Viacom's chairman and chief executive, described the conclusion of the merger as "a truly momentous and historic occasion for Viacom as we combine with CBS to create an unparalleled entertainment and information enterprise. . . . Our businesses span all ages and all audiences, across virtually all media."
Viacom's stock closed yesterday at $56.37 1/2, up $2.18 3/4.

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