Hearst Television contract up for renewal on Time Warner

[mrschimpf]

It's not just Time Warner. I gather that this contract was a consortium deal with Time Warner, Insight Cable, and Bright House Cable, and all three are affected in various parts of the country.

Time Warner at one point owned part of Bright House, and they remain close partners. They not only share in the ownership of Road Runner internet, but also collectively negotiate quite a few carriage deals. I hadn't heard the same was true about Insight Cable, though.

Insight is now under Time Warner's control; they also lost CBS in Louisville tonight via Hearst's WLKY. But bizarrely according to the local public radio outlet, TWC/Insight is now pumping in the signal of WROC, a Nexstar CBS affiliate from Rochester, New York, into Louisville. That's a station deep in Time Warner's Upstate NY country.

So it's possible if TWC cuts off the Charter deal, be it by court order or permission from them, we could see another ABC affiliate from a market like Rockford or Erie (if Nexstar's in some kind of deal with Time Warner, where they have ABC affils). It feels ugly if they're importing stations from thousands of miles away into markets that hardly give any thought to 'what's happening in Rochester'.

[Jack 1000]

Insight is now under Time Warner's control; they also lost CBS in Louisville tonight via Hearst's WLKY. But bizarrely according to the local public radio outlet, TWC/Insight is now pumping in the signal of WROC, a Nexstar CBS affiliate from Rochester, New York, into Louisville. That's a station deep in Time Warner's Upstate NY country.

So it's possible if TWC cuts off the Charter deal, be it by court order or permission from them, we could see another ABC affiliate from a market like Rockford or Erie (if Nexstar's in some kind of deal with Time Warner, where they have ABC affils). It feels ugly if they're importing stations from thousands of miles away into markets that hardly give any thought to 'what's happening in Rochester'.

Actually,

Pulling in a distant out of state signal may not be a bad idea during the negotiating process, as it could help salvage station blackouts, preventing customers from their programing.

Jack

[ddeerrff]

[rant]  Content providers, particularly those who normally provide a free OTA signal, should get their income from advertising (period!).  The MSO should get its income from subscribers, and should not be paying the content provider at all.

The content provider should be grateful to the carrier for providing that service - if they reach more viewers, they can charge more for advertising.

After all, if I mail order something from Best Buy, I wouldn't expect UPS to have to pay BB for the privilege of shipping the merchandise, would you?  [/rant]

[Bebop]

UPS probably offers BB a discount if they are the preferred carrier over FedEX.

[Talos4]

The latest Via the Business Journal

Channel 12 blasts Time Warner Cable statements
The Business Journal by Rich Kirchen, Senior Reporter
Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 2:09pm CDT

WISN-TV (Channel 12) in Milwaukee took exception to Time Warner Cable saying the station's owner threatened a "blackout" over contentious contract negotiations and said if negotiations fail to progress, WISN will no longer run on the cable system.

In a press release Wednesday, WISN-TV said its owner Hearst Television Inc.    , New York City, said the company is trying to reach a new agreement with Time Warner Cable, but negotiations have reached an impasse. Hearst has temporarily granted Time Warner an extension to continue carrying Channel 12.

"Time Warner Cable has terminated negotiations with our company, Hearst Television, for continued carriage of WISN-TV on Time Warner Cable systems," noted Jan Wade, president and general manager of WISN-TV. "Hearst has successfully concluded more than 150 carriage agreements in recent months with other cable companies with no disruption of service to subscribers."

Wade said Time Warner Cable refuses to pay the station "a reasonable fee relative to what it pays for other significantly less popular channels." Time Warner said earlier this week that Hearst was seeking a 300 percent increase in the fee the cable system pays to carry Hearst stations, including WISN.

"Time Warner's characterization of the percentage increase in carriage fees we are seeking is inaccurate," Wade said. "We have sought a reasonable increase consistent with the increased costs we have to pay for our highly valued programming and the carriage fees now paid to us by Time Warner's competitors."

Time Warner Cable is seeking a significant discount from market-based fees, Wade said.

"Contrary to Time Warner's claim, we will not be 'blacking out' our station," Wade said. "You may continue to receive our station for free, over the air, or by satellite from DirecTV or DISH, and, where available, from other cable operators."

[foxeng]

In my market here in NC, the Hearst station has been replaced with WBRE, Wilkes-Barrie, PA. The Hearst stations ratings haven't dropped that much considering that TWC has about a 60% share of the cable here. If this continues, TWC will be the loser since the pull hasn't really effected the Hearst stations here. Hearst could go a long time here.

[LoadStar]

What a ridiculous spin statement (from WISN, not foxeng -- just to be clear)

1) They never really come right out and deny the 300% increase... only that the "characterization" of the increase is inaccurate. IMO, that's basically them confirming the increase -- they just didn't like the way that it sounded coming from Time Warner.

2) They know d*mn well that when Time Warner says that Hearst is blacking out the stations, they mean specifically on Time Warner. (Of course they're not blacking out the station for everyone. Duh.) For them to go and say "no, we're not blacking out the stations" just because they are available OTA and on other services is just plain stupid, and frankly a little insulting of everyone's intelligence

3) Just because they may not have gotten to the point of a blackout for anyone else recently doesn't mean it hasn't come perilously close. I think most recently they got to within a day of a blackout with DirecTV. That doesn't exactly speak well of Hearst.

[mrschimpf]

In my market here in NC, the Hearst station has been replaced with WBRE, Wilkes-Barrie, PA. The Hearst stations ratings haven't dropped that much considering that TWC has about a 60% share of the cable here. If this continues, TWC will be the loser since the pull hasn't really effected the Hearst stations here. Hearst could go a long time here.

At this point, WISN can go to mid-September with a holdout; once you get to the fall schedule, and though I'm not sure, but I think they have the Packers/Bears NFL Network Thursday night game, that's when it gets serious, since TWC will carry NFL Network approximately on the 32nd of never at this point. All anyone on TWC would miss on ABC is The Bachelorette finale in primetime and the rest of ABC's weak summer schedule. Same with CBS, with only Big Brother drawing anything for them (and CBS doesn't mind it since their reruns do fine in summer).

But if you're a Hearst NBC affiliate, you need this done ASAP with the Olympics and their early season start. They'll get this done with TWC, if just to make sure their second biggest network gets its usual big quadrennial carnival pitch in.

Already though, the Nexstar situation is turning out a mess all its own because they aren't happy about their signals being imported, and in Cincinnati TWC had to block out the afternoon schedule on the NBC station they imported from Terre Haute because Sinclair's MyNet station there reminded TWC about syndicated programming rights they asserted under law that the Terre Haute station was carrying without permission in the Cinci market.

The WISN statement is pure spin for sure, that I agree with. Right now I'm interested in seeing if Charter will get their own link to WISN and force the blackout once they're out of the way, and if Nexstar's WTVO from Rockford or another ABC station will be imported, or even WBAY in Green Bay (which airs in SD on the Plymouth and Howards Grove Time Warner systems).

[Jack 1000]

What a ridiculous spin statement (from WISN, not foxeng -- just to be clear)

1) They never really come right out and deny the 300% increase... only that the "characterization" of the increase is inaccurate. IMO, that's basically them confirming the increase -- they just didn't like the way that it sounded coming from Time Warner.

2) They know d*mn well that when Time Warner says that Hearst is blacking out the stations, they mean specifically on Time Warner. (Of course they're not blacking out the station for everyone. Duh.) For them to go and say "no, we're not blacking out the stations" just because they are available OTA and on other services is just plain stupid, and frankly a little insulting of everyone's intelligence

3) Just because they may not have gotten to the point of a blackout for anyone else recently doesn't mean it hasn't come perilously close. I think most recently they got to within a day of a blackout with DirecTV. That doesn't exactly speak well of Hearst.

+1!

Jack

[LoadStar]

Duane Dudek now says that WISN will be gone at midnight tonight from Time Warner. Apparently Charter has found another way to get the WISN signal.

(I wonder if WISN sent a bunch of antenna engineers up to Charter's reception point to throw something together real quick. Either that, or they just told Charter to sign up with DirecTV or Dish.

[foxeng]

We hear Hearst is in this for the long haul. Of course you never know if that is just posturing or not.

But now Nexstar, who owns WBRE, is complaining that TWC has no right to put their stations signal on in other markets without their permission. TWC is basically telling them to go pound sand. That will be the real interesting side story in all this. It is getting out of hand really quickly now.

[Jack 1000]

Here's news from Hearst's side of the debate:

http://www.wisn.com/news/south-east-wisconsin/WISN-News/Notice-to-Time-Warner-Cable-Subscribers/-/10447736/15454470/-/qb01se/-/index.html

And from TWC's side of things:

http://twcconversations.com/local/?eid=true&IID=50022974-DF7E-40B4-9AAF-880F68D99DCB

Jack

[LoadStar]

Curious choice. They've filled the slot with another "instance" of Hallmark Movie Channel. I guess I would have expected them just to put up a full screen text card rather than another channel.

[RLJSlick]

It's amazing, that WISN is suggesting that we switch to another provider to continue to watch them. Are they kidding or something?!  The only thing I ever watch is the Green Bay Packer game once a year or so.

[SVD]

Been away from this forum for awhile, but came back today after my wife calls me up and is like wtf is up with channel 12.  I'll have to read this whole thread and get myself up to speed.  Thanks as always for being on top of things guys!