Viacom, Time Warner to Merge Comedy Channels : Cable TV: Each company will own half of the combined effort. The deal is the latest example of consolidation within the industry.

Two competing cable-TV comedy channels, which have struggled to gain acceptance among viewers, advertisers and local cable systems, will merge into a single channel.

Viacom International’s Ha! channel, on the air since April 1, and Time Warner’s Comedy Channel, launched in November, 1989, plan to pool their assets under the name Comedy TV by early next year, the companies said Tuesday.

An agreement to merge the two channels, which faced costly and debilitating competition until they became profitable, is the latest example of consolidation within the cable TV industry.

The business climate for cable has become increasingly uncertain in recent months as the industry faces the prospect of reregulation, tighter credit from financiers and a slowdown in advertising.

“It would have been very expensive for us to push on. We were doing a very good job of standing each other up,” said Viacom President Frank Biondi at a press conference in New York.

Viacom and Time Warner had been having on-again, off-again discussions regarding the merger of the two comedy channels for a year. But talks had broken off over issues of control, as well as acrimony stemming from Viacom’s $2.4-billion antitrust lawsuit against Time Warner and its Home Box Office subsidiary.

Officials at both companies, however, said the merger agreement was not linked to a settlement of the lawsuit. Time Warner operates the Comedy Channel through its HBO unit, while Viacom runs Ha! through its MTV Networks subsidiary.

Time Warner and Viacom will each own 50% of Comedy TV, with a programming lineup culled from both Ha! and the Comedy Channel. The two channels have taken different programming approaches, with the Comedy Channel using more of a video-clip format similar to MTV’s while Ha! has relied upon sitcom reruns as the backbone of its schedule.

The merged channel is to be staffed by employees from both companies, but Michael Fuchs, chief executive of HBO, acknowledged there will be “some consolidating” of positions. A new president for the channel will be recruited from outside either company, officials said.

The Comedy Channel is available to 8.5 million homes and Ha! is in 6.5 million. The companies said the merged channel would have a subscriber base of about 15 million. Biondi said the merged channel could become profitable when it reaches between 20 million and 30 million homes, depending on ratings and advertising levels.

In the Los Angeles area, the Comedy Channel is available to slightly over 100,000 households and Ha! reaches 190,000.

Erica Gruen, senior vice president at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising in New York, observed that, at current subscriber levels, neither channel “inspired a stampede of advertising in their direction.”

She noted that 15 million subscribers “creates a stronger impression in an advertiser’s mind,” although it is still far short of the more than 50 million homes that receive successful cable networks, such as ESPN, CNN, USA Network, MTV and Nickelodeon.

In the past month, a shakeout of the cable-TV industry has hit new and emerging networks. Last week, Denver cable giant Tele-Communications Inc. said it had shelved plans to buy 50% of the ailing pay channels Showtime and the Movie Channel for $225 million, which are also owned by Viacom.

And on Monday, Mizlou Communications shut down its Sports News Network because it was unable to attract enough subscribers. Last month, two competing cable-TV courtroom channels still on the drawing boards said they would merge.

“There is a limited market for cable networks with similar type of programming,” said Lisbeth Barron, vice president at S. G. Warburg & Co., an investment firm in New York.

Until recently, executives at each comedy channel maintained that they would wage their battle until the bitter end, and neither network was under pressure from its parent to give up and cut its losses. But eight months of head-to-head competition has taken its toll.

HBO’s Fuchs said the Comedy Channel has run up about $40 million in losses so far. Three years ago, he noted, the Comedy Channel “would have been a slam dunk.”

Last year, five months before Viacom was launched on April Fools’ Day, officials said the company would spend $45 million to buy old sitcoms and movies for Ha! and could lose $100 million over the next three years. In the second quarter, Ha! cost Viacom $18.2 million in start-up and operating expenses, and in the third quarter it suffered another $10.5-million operating loss.

John Lippman reported from Los Angeles and Paul Richter from New York.