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CBS Blackout on Time Warner Cable May Last Until N.F.L. Season

August 15, 2013 by

That would mean three more weeks without CBS programming for the cable subscribers. The contract dispute is approaching the two-week mark with no hint of an imminent settlement.

“I really think these guys are going to need the N.F.L. to add a sense of urgency to this,” said David Bank, a media analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

Neither side in the standoff has mentioned any progress over the last several days. Both have continued to level charges and accusations of blame for Time Warner Cable’s decision to remove CBS’s stations in areas the cable company covers, which include subscribers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.

The issue centers on fees that cable companies are obligated to pay to broadcast stations for the right to retransmit them on their cable systems. CBS has asked for a substantial increase, widely estimated at a $1 per subscriber raise. Time Warner Cable has declared the demands exorbitant.

But the focus of the dispute is now additional rights to packages of programming that CBS sells to on-demand subscription video services like Netflix and Amazon. Time Warner Cable wants to gain access to that content; CBS insists it would mean Time Warner Cable was getting for free something it sells for hundreds of millions of dollars to on-demand services.

The only action on the conflict taking place in recent days has involved parties outside the negotiations. Three residents in Southern California filed a class-action suit against Time Warner Cable on Wednesday saying the plaintiffs would not have signed up with the operator had they known programming would be denied to them.

Several politicians including both California senators have urged the Federal Communications Commission to step in, but the agency’s avenues of input are limited. If either side makes a complaint of bad-faith negotiating, the F.C.C. could potentially intercede but neither side has made such a complaint.

While representatives of both sides have said the negotiations continue, no one is predicting the end is in sight.

The N.F.L. season has been cited frequently as the bridge too far because of expected vociferous protests from customers missing games. The cable operator acknowledged at the start of the blackout that it was removing the CBS stations well ahead of the football season because it would lose leverage in the talks once the season began.

But Mr. Bank said the lack of progress thus far points to the need for the N.F.L. season to provide a deadline to generate movement. “We’re going to follow this like a ping-pong game,” he said, but added, “I would think now that it’s going to take another several weeks.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/business/media/cbs-blackout-on-time-warner-cable-may-last-until-nfl-season.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Media Decoder Blog: Time Warner Cable Says It Will Keep ‘Open Mind’ on Reinstating Al Jazeera

January 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Time Warner Cable minced no words when it announced on Wednesday night that it was dropping Current TV, just hours after Al Jazeera acquired the channel. “Our agreement with Current has been terminated and we will no longer be carrying the service,” the distributor said. “We are removing the service as quickly as possible.”

Critics of the distributor’s decision didn’t hold back, either, calling it cowardly, shameful and just plain dumb. On Twitter and Facebook, many people assumed that Time Warner Cable was expressing corporate opposition to Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant, by taking Current off its cable systems in the United States.

But executives at the cable company said the channel wasn’t removed for political reasons. It had more to do, they said, with Current’s low ratings and its contract, which had a “change of ownership” clause that allowed it to be terminated. Time Warner Cable, which has 12 million subscribers, enough to make it the second-largest cable company in the country, has taken a hard line against low-rated channels.

That said, Time Warner Cable doesn’t want to be seen as outwardly hostile to Al Jazeera, especially at a time when other major distributors are keeping Current on their cable systems. (DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon, and ATT were among the distributors that consented to the takeover of Current.) Al Jazeera plans to replace Current with a channel, potentially called Al Jazeera America, that incorporates new programming from the United States and currrent programming from its headquarters in Qatar.

On Thursday afternoon, as complaints continued, Time Warner Cable issued a statement that opened the door to carrying the channel in the future. “We are keeping an open mind, and as the service develops, we will evaluate whether it makes sense, for our customers, to launch the network,” the statement read.

Time Warner Cable noted that it had what is called a “hunting license” in the television industry: an option to carry Al Jazeera’s current English-language channel if it so chooses. To date, it hasn’t acted on that option. Time Warner Cable and other major distributors have been reluctant to carry Al Jazeera English, in part because they feel there isn’t adequate demand for the channel from their customers. They also resent that the channel is streamed free over the Internet.

Through separate pacts between Al Jazeera English and local broadcasters, the channel is already accessible through Time Warner Cable in New York and Los Angeles.

Time Warner Cable may simply be betting that if it negotiates a new contract with Al Jazeera, the terms will be more favorable than the ones in the old contract with Current. A  spokeswoman for the distributor declined to comment on that prospect.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/time-warner-cable-says-it-will-keep-open-mind-on-reinstating-al-jazeera/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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