LIN is at it again

[klwillis45]

http://consumerist.com/5056294/nbc-stations-will-ditch-time-warner-cable-unless-they-see-some-cash

[Northern Fringe]

WLUK FOX-11 Green Bay was pulled from Time Warner's Northeast Wisconsin cable systems last night at midnight.  It has been replaced by a text screen with information about the situation (//www.TellTheTruthWLUK.com) that negotiations continue.  For those of us at the very northern edge of the Milwaukee market, I would hope they would still replace the Green Bay FOX station with FOX 6 Milwaukee.  At least viewers up here would be able to see the Packer game on Sunday that way.  We do receive channels 4 & 12 up here on cable, transported via fiber cable from Milwaukee.  Hopefully they figure this thing out, it seems to me that the greedy Green Bay TV station has everything to lose.

[LoadStar]

WLUK FOX-11 Green Bay was pulled from Time Warner's Northeast Wisconsin cable systems last night at midnight.  It has been replaced by a text screen with information about the situation (//www.TellTheTruthWLUK.com) that negotiations continue.  For those of us at the very northern edge of the Milwaukee market, I would hope they would still replace the Green Bay FOX station with FOX 6 Milwaukee.  At least viewers up here would be able to see the Packer game on Sunday that way.  We do receive channels 4 & 12 up here on cable, transported via fiber cable from Milwaukee.  Hopefully they figure this thing out, it seems to me that the greedy Green Bay TV station has everything to lose.

If you guys are out of the FOX 6 DMA, I don't think Time Warner would be allowed to carry it there, even if you can get it over the air.

[Northern Fringe]

Too bad, it's a frenzy up here.  Time Warner has tents at their local offices where they're giving out antennas to receive FOX with.  The other local (Green Bay) stations had this as their lead story on the news tonight.  I wonder how Time Warner can carry TMJ4 and WISN-12 up here and not make a deal to get FOX-6.  At least in the Oshkosh area.  Maybe they don't want to risk their negotiations with FOX-11 by putting another FOX station on.  People would probably start to like FOX-6 and want to keep it

[foxeng]

Mediacom and Sinclair went through this 18 months ago and Mediacom lost. When a cable company starts to hand out OTA antennas, they are loosing customers to other MVPDs.

[Northern Fringe]

As a note on the TimeWarner/FOX situation to the north of Milwaukee, I'd say the website //www.foxcitiestv.com is doing an excellent job keeping the latest news posted.  It makes for interesting reading...

[Jack 1000]

Why couldn't TWC just by-pass the Green Bay FOX 6 channel agreement and implement a special signal to allow cable transmission of Fox 6 here in Milwaukee?

Jack

[CrashCamomilli]

The fact of the matter, is this situation will only become more common in the future.

Wy wife and I often discuss how much of what we watch is avalible OTA.  I would guess that ~90% of what we watch is avalible free, and of the remaining 10%, much of that is now avalible free online form the respective networks on their websites.

If part of the draw for TWC, is the content of the local channels, something that TWC's customers pay for, why shouldn't they be expected to share a small % of the profit with the stations that are providing them that content.

This also leads into issues of how ad dollars are calculated.  All of the OTA viewers that network stations reach count directly as viewers.  Often times, shows recorded on DVR systems do not directly translate into actual viewers for the purpose of ad revenue.  The industry estimate for heroes is that ~30% of all viewers watch the show out of it's timeslot.  There are similar figures avalible for other primetime shows as well.   That loss of revenue must be recovered.

I would not be so judgemental and simply call them greedy.  Similar requests from LIN TV, has sugggested they are asking for ~$0.01/subscriber/day, a tiny fraction of what TWC charges us.  Even on basic cable, $3.56 of ~$480/yr each subscriber pays is not unreasonable.  TWC's fear is setting a precident for the future, especially as retransmission deals expire this year with much larger distributors.

Network TV, and our Local stations are supported by ad revenue, and as their business model changes, so must their agreements.

TWC and other cable carriers are scared right now as they look to the future.  As more content becomes avalible OTA, and online, we could see the business model for the whole cable system as a whole collapse.

Considering how many of the members of this forum already have PC's in their living room, how long will it be before the only thing we need from TWC, will be there RR service.  Consider a future where content is sold directly to consumers, bypassing middlemen like TWC or Comcast.  If this where to happen, the cable companies would fall into a position of providing only cable infrastructure, a business with razor thin margins that would provide only a fraction of the revenue they currently recieve.

We will see some massive changes coming in content distribution in the next 5-10 years.

OTA, cable, and SAT will all be changing their business models as we the consumers change in how we consume content.

[4runnergusto]

Are we not in theory being "double taxed" by having to both pay for our television service and having to watch ads that create revenue for the stations that we are paying to watch? Seems to me that TWC is being a bit hypocritical here (imagine that?).

[Andrew]

This also leads into issues of how ad dollars are calculated.  All of the OTA viewers that network stations reach count directly as viewers.  Often times, shows recorded on DVR systems do not directly translate into actual viewers for the purpose of ad revenue.  The industry estimate for heroes is that ~30% of all viewers watch the show out of it's timeslot.  There are similar figures avalible for other primetime shows as well.   That loss of revenue must be recovered.

That is why shows like heroes are putting more ads (product and music placement) inside the show.  But I guess that revenue is not shared with the local station.

[foxeng]

The practice of the networks paying stations to air programming stopped years ago and stations now pay the networks.

[Kenoman]

This is cool (From ENGADGET)

My, my -- now isn't this nifty. Time Warner Cable in Northeast Wisconsin is just one of the many areas still fighting with LIN TV in an attempt to get LIN TV-owned stations back in the EPG. As you can likely guess, the World Series is being played right now on one such station (WLUK), which obviously is no longer available via TWC to NE Wisconsin subscribers. In a workaround that can only be described as brilliant, it is bringing the Fall Classic to viewers via FOX Sports Espanol (slot 70; SD only) and encouraging them to catch the English play calling through the radio. We've no clue if other TWC regions are dabbling in the same black magic, but we can't help but chuckle and offer up a round of golf claps -- this, friends, is determination at work. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

TWC does have a heart?

[Northern Fringe]

I can confirm this... TWC has Fox Sports En Espanol on channel 70 in Oshkosh.  They've replaced WLUK with Starz Kids & Family on channel 12.  Now we just need Fox Sports En Espanol with English on the SAP