Perhaps this move presages a merger of United Video's system with one being developed by Tele-Communications and the News Corporation's TV Guide.

But critics outside the agency say the move presages a change in financial priorities that accommodates conservative values.

It seemed unlikely, though, that the British move presaged any imminent increase in global interest rates.

Investors feared that the move presaged a new era in which growing numbers of pay-per-view channels would provide cable subscribers with the equivalent of a video store in their living rooms.

Thai timber industry sources believe that the move presages a freeze on the granting of any new logging concessions from the end of 1993.

And France's move may presage sales by other European governments of shares in their former phone monopolies.

The move may presage a wider retrenchment by the drug industry, which sharply increased the size of its sales forces in the last decade.

Advertising executives who have been notified about the plan said the move could presage the creation of other local cable stations by Time Warner.

The move may also presage a deeper reshuffling of the defense apparatus and more direct control of the military by Mr. Putin.