Vice-president to cable kingpin

Former US vice-president Al Gore could be close to fulfilling his latest ambition as a media mogul in a $70m (£44m) deal to buy the cable network Newsworld International from Vivendi Universal.

Mr Gore's interest in launching a cable TV service emerged earlier this year but the former politician has kept the plans close to his chest.

Initial reports suggested he wanted to launch a liberal-biased news operation to counter the growing strength of the conservative media in America, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. There had also been speculation that the Democrat had been looking at the possibility of a radio news network. Since then there has been speculation that the network is more likely to be a mainstream news and documentary channel aimed at younger viewers.

In June, Steve Rosenbaum, the chief executive of a documentary production company which has consulted with Mr Gore, told the New York Times: "It's not a political network, it's not an Al Gore network, it's not a Democratic network. Any of those characterisations would be inaccurate."

According to yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Mr Gore is in talks to acquire Newsworld, which was left out of the recent agreement to merge the Universal entertainment business with NBC. The channel broadcasts news bulletins from around the world to 20m American homes.

Mr Gore is said to have met several of the big cable networks, including Comcast, to discuss possible distribution deals. Vivendi declined to comment.

Newsworld was launched by Canadian Broadcasting Company in 1994 and has changed hands several times. It has revenues of just $19m. Its biggest distributor is DirecTV, the US satellite business which Mr Murdoch is in the process of buying.

Mr Gore's main partner in the project is Joel Hyatt, co-founder of Hyatt Legal Services and a fundraiser for the Democrats during the 2000 election campaign.

Mr Gore, who served with Bill Clinton in the White House for eight years, narrowly lost the presidential race in the 2000 election to George Bush.

A member of the US Congress for 25 years, Mr Gore was instrumental in fighting for federal funds to assist in building what later became the internet. He helped popularise the term "information superhighway". In March he joined the board of Apple and he is a senior adviser to internet search engine, Google.

Vivendi is expected to cement the $40bn merger of the Universal entertainment business with General Electric's NBC this week. The two companies announced a preliminary agreement last month.

The merger would bring together the NBC TV network with the Universal film and TV production business, a handful of cable channels and theme parks.