An impasse over carriage rights fees may result in a blackout of Comcast SportsNet Chicago for Dish Network subscribers beginning next month, potentially cutting off Chicago Bulls and Blackh...
Time Warner Cable ran ads saying CBS was asking for a 600 percent fee increase. Time Warner Cable The two sides need each other. Time Warner can't stand to lose CBS -- the most watched television network in the country -- permanently, and CBS needs the distribution in the major markets that Time Warner provides. For those reasons, they'll need to come to an agreement eventually. The question is when. CBS's first NFL broadcasts come in late August, with the fall television season right around the corner the following month. What programming is at risk and for whom? Only some Time Warner Cable subscribers are at risk of losing CBS as part of their cable package. Primarily, its customers in New York, Los Angeles, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area, along with a handful of other cities where Time Warner is not the primary cable operator. In all, it represents about 3 million subscribers, or roughly a quarter of Time Warner's entire base. But CBS channel Showtime is also under discussion. And that could affect the entire TWC footprint.
The companies are seeking to extend their contract for retransmission fees, the money that cable and satellite TV providers pay station owners for the right to carry their signals. The contract expired at the end of June but the network was kept on the cable company's lineup as the talks continued. They've set numerous deadlines in the last month that were repeatedly delayed. After their last deadline expired at midnight on July 29, TWC briefly dropped CBS but resumed the network's programming shortly after agreeing to more talks. Without a contract in place, the companies have repeatedly warned, the network would be dropped for TWC customers in eight markets nationwide. It'll particularly affect three major cities where TWC is the dominant pay-TV provider and CBS owns its local network station — New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. The contract only involves TV stations owned by New York-based CBS Corp. CBS-affiliate stations owned by other broadcasting companies — even if they're in TWC service areas — are not affected by the negotiations.
DENNIS JOHNSON: Customers don't want their cable bills to go up and CBS - as well as others - are asking for more and more fee increases for programming. That is why we're trying to hold the line, and fight for our customers. DEL BARCO: Time Warner Cable also shut down CBS on Showtime, Movie Channel to all its customers around the country, though it offered to repay them later. CBS has retaliated by blocking access to its free online shows to all Time Warner customers. The FCC's acting chair, Mignon Clyburn, even got into the mix. MIGNON CLYBURN: I am really distressed that consumers and viewers are being adversely affected, and I am urging - we continue to urge all parties to stay and resolve, in good faith, this issue as soon as possible. DEL BARCO: Variety's New York digital editor, Todd Spangler, says the Time Warner-CBS battle is one of the longer and more high-profile dust-ups between cable providers, and TV and cable stations. TODD SPANGLER: The conventional wisdom here is that content always wins.
Time Warner Cable has had over 50 of these types of disputes in the last five years and sadly seems to do this quite often to their customers. Q: Can I still get CBS Primetime on Demand? A: While Time Warner is not offering the regular linear channel, then they won't have the on Demand content either. Q: Why have they also taken down Showtime? A: Showtime is owned by CBS. This is a wholly punitive measure by Time Warner Cable. TIME WARNER CABLE SUSPENDS SHOWTIME® SERVICES NATIONWIDE DESPITE NETWORK'S OFFER TO CONTINUE CARRIAGE For First Time In Network History, SHOWTIME Is Dropped NEW YORK, NY (August 2, 2013) – Showtime Networks' customers nationwide have had their services disrupted by Time Warner Cable today, when for the first time in SHOWTIME history a distributor has chosen to remove the network's programming – despite the network's authorization to allow carriage while negotiations continue. Our customers chose to subscribe to SHOWTIME, and Time Warner Cable in turn chose to pull our service from the subscribers we both serve.
The dispute centers on the amount of the monthly fee that TWC pays for each subscriber who receives programming from the stations that CBS owns. The companies haven't discussed proposals in detail, but RBC Capital Markets' David Bank says the broadcaster was lobbying for as much as $2 per subscriber each month, more than twice the current rate the cable company pays. CBS chief Les Moonves has promised investors that he'll collect higher fees from pay TV distributors to help offset the $3. 6B the network spends each year for its content. The CEO has predicted that CBS will collect $500M in 2015 from pay TV fees, rising to about $1B by 2017. But TWC chief Glenn Britt is leading the cable industry's effort to hold down skyrocketing programming costs which are cutting into TWC's profit margins, and, if unchecked, could inspire widespread cord cutting. "People are starting to pay attention to the fact that the multichannel TV package, the big package which is in 90% of the homes, is starting to get too expensive for lower-income people, " he told analysts last month.
By night, Bill cranks a Flying V with his band at the bar.
Unable to come to terms on a new distribution agreement, CBS-owned channels have gone dark on Time Warner Cable systems around the country, including Los Angeles and New York City. In Los Angeles, the signals of KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KCAL-TV Channel 9 were pulled around 2:15 p. m. Friday. In New York, WCBS-TV, the flagship station of the CBS network, was also off of Time Warner Cable systems. Other channels that were dropped include the CBS-owned cable channels Showtime and The Movie Channel (TMC). The dispute covers only CBS-owned channels. CBS affiliates that are carried by Time Warner Cable are not part of this fight. Time Warner Cable said customers who receive Showtime and TMC, both of which are sold on an a la carte basis, would receive a credit retroactive to the first day of the blackout. In the meantime, Time Warner Cable is offering the pay channels Starz and Encore in the place of Showtime and TMC. The company did not say whether it would offer a rebate to subscribers for the CBS TV stations.
The parties resumed talks on August 8 amid claims by CBS EVP Martin Franks that TWC was trying to "hamstring our ability to do business with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus and other new entrants that pose a new competitive threat to their former, cozy, unchallenged monopoly status. " The cabler quickly denied that, saying, "Both our expired and proposed agreements with CBS place no restriction on their ability to sell all of their product to Netflix, Amazon, Intel or any other entity, or continue to give all of their best content away for free online, as they have to date. " DirecTV rooted for the pay-TV provider, while Disney CEO Bob Iger publicly sided for CBS. Meanwhile, customer discontent began to boil over. On August 14, three TWC subscribers in LA filed a class action suit against the company, seeking reimbursement for fees charged during the blackout and claiming unjust enrichment, breach of contract and more. Despite the limited potential audience, CBS continued to win some nights in the ratings.