Cable TV is dying — and can still be a very good business.

What do you do if you’re a big media company that owns a bunch of cable TV networks?

In many cases, you try to get rid of them. Just this week, Disney dumped its half-ownership of A&E and other networks for $1.2 billion ,

Versant CEO Mark Lazarus doesn’t have that option: The bulk of his company is a collection of cable networks, spun out of Comcast earlier this year. Has to run them, not sell them.

So Lazarus has to do three things at once: Manage his declining cable business, use the cash it still generates to build new businesses for a post-cable era, and write checks to shareholders to keep them interested while he does it.

We got a progress…