Home / News / Local News Viewers may pay the cost in Time Warner Cable, Fox dispute

[RLJSlick]

Time Warner is at it again, I'm so glad I left that horrible service:

http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_9c071cda-f1de-11de-b245-001cc4c03286.html

[WITI6fan]

In this case, it's more of a News Corporation thing. They're trying to make money off of each and every property they own. They've already had Google News stop searching their websites and there are rumors that they're going to start charging for access to sites like FOXNews.com and WSJ.com. And on the TV side they rather try to make money off of the cable subscribers than to actually put out quality programming that advertisers will want to buy ad time during.

And I'm sure Rupert Murdoch isn't too happy that his local stations can be  viewed for free over the air, so I wouldn't be surprised to see something happen there, too.

[Jack 1000]

Hey All,

Tom (The Admin) has asked me to repost my thread about this after the original poster asked a question, "Could This Happen Here?"  The OP hasn't put his thread back, and we are getting down to the wire, so I am going to post what I said here. (The original thread got deleted accidentally.)

WHAT IS AFFECTED AND NOT AFFECTED BY THE TWC/FOX DISPUTE IN MILWAUKEE?

Local Fox 6 here in Milwaukee and Retro TV, which is also a FOX affiliate are owned by another company.  What this means for Milwaukee is that, American Idol. the NFL playoff games, and the Simpson's aren't going anywhere. The potential Fox Blackout affects only the stations under the ownership of News Corp.

News Corp DOES have some national Fox Network shows on our local TWC, and as I understand it, if a deal is not reached by Midnight going into January 1st the following channels COULD be lost:

•Fuel
•Speed Channel
•Fox Soccer Channel
•Fox Sports World Espanol
•FX

Both companies may agree to a deadline extension, or likely work to after those channels could be pulled to get a deal to get them back on the air. But what is happening is:

It's not TWC that is taking the channels away. It is Fox who is pulling the signal from TWC systems if a deal is not reached or a deadline extension is not agreed upon. (For about two weeks last year, LIN TV, which owns Fox programing in Green Bay went dark on TWC.) TWC gave out antennas and provided alternative ways to get programing. A deal was made about a week and a half later and service was restored.

Other companies have the same type of carriage agreements, so don't think that they are immune to what is happening here. It was either Direct TV or Dish Network who could not reach a deal with Tru TV and that station went dark for about two weeks before a deal was reached. U-Verse, because it is so new has not had to deal with retransmission agreements, but in about two years, they will.

At least in other TWC markets local stations on Fox could be affected if a deal is not reached. At least here, the locals are saved. Also note that Fox News Channel and Fox Movie Channel are not a part of this dispute.

Hope this helps!

Jack

[Jack 1000]

Here is a great article that explains why the issues involved with FOX/TWC are a part of a much bigger scale problem.  The loss and increased costs associated with broadcast TV air-time.  More people are turning to the Net and second party vendors for their TV choices, (Cable, Dish, U-Verse ) and local broadcasters are losing money on OTA TV shows:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/28/financial/f210935S93.DTL

Jack

[ArgMeMatey]

Thanks for the great article Jack.  This is not going to happen overnight, but it is certainly where we are headed.  The question is "How soon will market and regulatory factors make it plausible?"

I made a similar point in a thread earlier this year, that the whole "channel" concept may be replaced by VOD.  http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8580

The points made in the sfgate article about declining Over the Air profitability, combined with the need for more wireless spectrum for mobile use, makes me wonder if wireless carriers are going to buy up TV stations, and then start lobbying the  FCC and congress with the aim of reallocating more spectrum.  
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Wireless-Industry-Proposes-Low-Power-TV-Spectrum-Grab-106156

Some people say this is not likely since so much energy was put into this year's digital TV cutover, but remember that planning for that transition began many years ago, before most in the mainstream could really wrap their minds around the VOD concept, and before mobile data was even possible for the masses.  (Remember how much hype the Journal Sentinel created around their new printing plant?  I wonder if they would have stayed profitable longer by avoiding that capital outlay.)

[Bebop]

Your next contents provider might be Apple.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703344704574610491399388448.html

[foxeng]

It would take years for the networks to unwind from affiliation agreements before they could even think about becoming cable only channels, not to mention the loss of audience they would be shedding. You will not get 30 million viewers for American Idol on cable only.

[ArgMeMatey]

It would take years for the networks to unwind from affiliation agreements before they could even think about becoming cable only channels, not to mention the loss of audience they would be shedding. You will not get 30 million viewers for American Idol on cable only.

You are right of course, it will take years.  But you can bet that once the first programmer steps over that threshold, everybody else will be watching.  When somebody finally hits the right formula, broadcast is a goner.  When the price is right, people will always take infinite choice over shared experience.

[bschlafer]

I had an interesting conversation with someone in the cable TV biz not long ago.  

He referred to my OTA TV viewing habits as "free-loading."   His attitude was that the bulk of the content in TV is produced by entertainment companies who foot the bill to create content, and the OTA free-loaders are getting it for free.

The credit card companies also refer to their customer who pay their balances off on time and avoid fees as free-loaders.

Apparently the business model is to convince people to continually pay more and more for cable and sat service (or their credit cards) with continually declining quality and service to their customers.

I feel at some point people will say enough.  Whatever they are charging is too expensive compared to the value of the content.  More and more credit cards are hitting the shredder these days too as people reassess the value those companies provide to them.

Fox and their entertainment industry moguls friends are sowing the seeds of their own demise.  Record companies have learned that the hard way by abusing not only their customers, but the very artists who created the music.  

I think OTA could see a major revival.  Cable and sat providers may go the way of the dinosaur.  Especially is someone smart (like Apple) can figure out how to shift the paradigm back to providing something the customer actually wants at a reasonable cost, instead of force-feeding them expensive crap.


*Bill

(OTA viewer with no cable bill for nearly 3 years now, and loving it!)

[RLJSlick]

Thank god I got rid of TWC they must be the worst cable network out there:

http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_80367e34-f5ac-11de-ae84-001cc4c002e0.html

[klwillis45]

Thank god I got rid of TWC they must be the worst cable network out there:

http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_80367e34-f5ac-11de-ae84-001cc4c002e0.html

Not with Charter still around.

[duncantuna]

It won't be OTA that kills cable.  It will be the internet.   It is the internet.

If you can put up with a different interface, a technologically savvy person can completely replace cable as their delivery method.

[RLJSlick]

.... and is exactly what i've been saying about TWC!:

http://gizmodo.com/5437975/time-warner-cables-genius-solution-to-possible-fox-outage-the-internet

[RLJSlick]

TWC teaching you how to not need Cable TV:

http://gizmodo.com/5437975/time-warner-cables-genius-solution-to-possible-fox-outage-the-internet