Scripps Networks Interactive will take the controlling interest in the Travel Channel; Cox Communications, the new minority stakeholder in the cable network, will retain 35 percent.

Terms of the deal have the asset valued at $975 million; Scripps will put $181 million in cash into the venture in exchange for its partnership. Further, the newly minted partnership, in which Cox gives up all but 35% of its stake in the cable network, has both parties taking on $878 million in third-party debt that will be guaranteed by Scripps and indemnified by Cox.

The transaction will result in the partnership having about $696 million in net debt.

At 22 years old, the Travel Channel reaches 95 million homes worldwide. The deal is expected to close by January 2010. Calls seeking comment were not acknowledged by press time.

Scripps Networks Interactive was advised on the transaction by Barclays Capital and Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom. Skadden partners on the transaction were Stephen Hamilton, Tom Gowan and Jessica Hough.

The recession’s impact on advertising has thrown a wet blanket on much media M&A that might have boosted an otherwise glacially-slow 2009. The biggest recent cable network transaction was the sale of the Weather Channel by Landmark Communications, a disbanding corporate, to NBC Universal, Bain Capital and the Blackstone Group in mid-2008.

Landmark has sought to shed other assets in separate transactions for over a year; it remains unclear whether the company has finished the process. Other notable media M&A this year includes BusinessWeek’s sale to Bloomberg from The McGraw-Hill Companies, Morningstar’s buy of an unspecified Pitchbook Data stake and Angelo Gordon & Co.’s buy of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, as the target exited bankruptcy.

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