The Golf Channel has signed an agreement with Primestar
Partners, the national direct-broadcast satellite service,
through which PrimeStar will distribute the network beginning
today.  Golf Channel CEO Joseph Gibbs: "The direct-to-home market
is extremely critical to The Golf Channel's distribution.  We
value PrimeStar's commitment to our service" (The Golf Channel).
The Golf Channel has been available on DirecTV and C-Band since
its January debut.

     The NBA and TNT Latin America have signed an agreement to
bring NBA game telecasts to the Latin America/Carribean region,
and into the homes of the 3.1M subscribers to TNT Latin America.
The two-year agreement will feature NBA games shown live each
Thursday and give TNT Latin America rights to three playoff
games.  NBA VP/Managing Director Rob Levine said the league "is
pleased to bring more games to our fans in Latin America" (NBA).

     ABC paid $1.2M, beating out CBS, for the World Track and
Field Championships August 5-13 in Gothenburg, Sweden.  ABC will
televise 8 1/2 hours of events and ESPN will air 6 1/2 hours
(Rudy Martzke, USA TODAY, 3/1)...."In a bid to improve what they
concede is a poor image," cable companies will begin
participating today in a program in which they will agree to pay
customers $20 if their people do not show up within the scheduled
time frame for a service call (WASHINGTON POST, 3/1)....This
morning's WALL STREET JOURNAL profiles the CD-ROM publishing
industry under the subhead: "Despite CD-ROMs' Boom, Few Titles
are Big Hits" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/1).

     Delphi Internet Services, an on-line services company owned
by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., named a management team to "beef
up its offerings, which have lagged behind other major on-line
providers."  Mark Benerofe, formerly Dir of Interactive Media at
Microsoft, was named Exec VP and GM; Bharath Kadaba, formerly Dir
of Internetworking and multimedia service's for IBM's Advantis
commercial computer service network, was named Exec VP/Worldwide
Operations; and Susan Goodman, founder of the Goodman Group, was
named Exec VP/Worldwide Marketing.  Movies and other materials
from News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting will be used to develop
multimedia offerings on Delphi (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/1).
     OTHER ON-LINE NEWS:  Bertelsmann AG, a closely held German
entertainment company, is joining forces with American Online to
create an on-line computer service in Europe (WALL STREET
JOURNAL, 3/1).

     SFX Broadcasting, the parent company of Dallas/Ft. Worth
station KRLD-AM, announced an agreement to buy all-sports radio
station, KTCK-AM, known as "The Ticket."  KRLD, whose offices are
located at The Ballpark at Arlington, and The Ticket will keep
their separate offices, frequencies and format.  KRLD has a news
and information format but does own the Rangers' radio rights.
KRLD GM Jerry Bobo noted that buying The Ticket "offers another
opportunity" to expand local sports programming:   "Anytime you
have a facility like The Ticket in a sports town such as Dallas,
the options always are available to pick up another sports
franchise" (Eric Zarate, FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 3/1).  This
morning's DAILY VARIETY reports that the SFX agreed to purchase
The Ticket from Cardinal Communications for $8M in cash plus
other considerations.  SFX also announced that Spence Kendrick,
President and majority shareholder of Cardinal Communications,
was named president of its newly created SFX Sports unit.
Completion of the deal is subject to approval of the FCC (DAILY
VARIETY, 3/1).

     CBS Inc. stock "jumped" Tuesday in the wake of the WALL
STREET JOURNAL report that it has held conversations about
selling to Turner Broadcasting System Inc.  CBS stock closed up
$2.50 to $64.50/share (DAILY VARIETY, 3/1).
     WHY CBS IS DECLINING? CNN's "Showbiz Today" looked at the
"dismal programming" at CBS and reports that the "Tiffany network
is on a decline because it has refused to expand into new media
businesses."  Ken Auletta, a media columnist, said that CBS Chair
Laurence Tisch's strategy was "to get out of all the businesses
that CBS was in.  So he sold the record company, sold the
magazine company, sold the book publishing company, sold the
regional sports cable network, and focused all his energy on the
broadcast business at a time when the broadcast business was
entering a period of decline."  Auletta said that NBC, Fox,
Turner, and ABC did "just the opposite," and have broadened out
into other businesses so if there is a downturn in broadcasting,
they will "have some cushion in some of these other businesses"
("Showbiz Today," CNN, 2/28).