Time Warner Cable in our area has dropped NBC or if you believe Time Warner it was pulled from them. They claim it's the local affiliate trying to charge outrageous prices for basically free content. The other side blames Time Warner. Either way it's us, the customers, that get screwed. Has anyone else experienced this?
From TW's Website:
Time Warner Cable did not drop KXAN. By refusing us an extension, LIN TV pulled KXAN from Time Warner Cable. KXAN decided to put its viewers in the middle of this business negotiation in order to force Time Warner Cable to give them the money they want for their free signal. It was ultimately KXAN's decision to not grant us permission to broadcast their signal. Federal laws mandate that we cease carriage of broadcast signals when retransmission agreements are not renewed. For the past few months, we have been working with KXAN to renew its retransmission agreement and we're continuing to negotiate with KXAN. We are hopeful KXAN will restore its programming to you.
KXAN and its parent company LIN TV are asking for money - and lots of it. They want to charge Time Warner Cable customers across the United States in order for you to see your programming. To make up for lower ratings and advertising revenue, broadcast stations are demanding millions of dollars for permission to carry their channels; fees that will fall, ultimately, to you
Here's a Yahoo article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081006/tv_nm/us_lintv
John Slider
10-06-08, 03:57 PM
Wow, I haven't experienced this here. Though, it wouldn't really matter because I get three NBC affiliates from my cable provider for some reason and two from OTA.
Mordred
10-06-08, 03:58 PM
Yes, yes, I have. At the same time as you. It sucks because probably 50% of the shows we TiVo are on NBC.
Patman
10-06-08, 04:04 PM
Deal or No Deal...
RichC2
10-06-08, 04:07 PM
I've heard of similar things in the past and it never made sense to me. It's a free broadcast channel, how much can they really charge for something sent over airwaves for free?
pinata242
10-06-08, 04:08 PM
Man, that sucks. This happened about two years ago in OKC with Cox and the local ABC-HD feed (SD was fine). It was about a year before it was resolved. There was no Lost to be had in HD that season.
HD Forum with news in 2006:
http://www.highdefforum.com/cable-providers/29057-cox-okc-dropping-koco-abc-hd.html
KOCO with resolution in 2007:
http://www.koco.com/news/14213376/detail.html
I'm only posting this as a point of reference for you poor souls.
aktick
10-06-08, 04:39 PM
The Fox affiliate in Green Bay is a LIN TV owned station, and they were also removed by Time Warner in the last week.
celmendo
10-06-08, 04:49 PM
I only watch 4 shows on NBC so I can easily watch them online but I shouldn't have to. No one should. We pay A LOT for cable as it is.
jpb07
10-06-08, 04:56 PM
This makes a lot of sense. Yes, it's free to air BUT the cable company is charging YOU for it. Why shouldn't the stations receive part of that income? AND....DirecTV/Dish have been paying the stations for their signal for years. Why should the cable companies be any different? It still amazes me how many breaks these a-hole cable companies get while the government sticks it to us sat. people.
SoSpacey
10-06-08, 05:00 PM
This makes a lot of sense. Yes, it's free to air BUT the cable company is charging YOU for it. Why shouldn't the stations receive part of that income? AND....DirecTV/Dish have been paying the stations for their signal for years. Why should the cable companies be any different? It still amazes me how many breaks these a-hole cable companies get while the government sticks it to us sat. people.
dont disagree with you about cable companies in general but if you ever look into pricing for "broadcast basic" or whatever your cable company calls channels like abc/cbs/fox/nbc/pbs (in ny it is 2-13) it is only $13 per month which really covers overhead.
you really are paying for everything else more than those basic channels.
wishbone
10-06-08, 05:57 PM
This makes a lot of sense. Yes, it's free to air BUT the cable company is charging YOU for it. Why shouldn't the stations receive part of that income? AND....DirecTV/Dish have been paying the stations for their signal for years. Why should the cable companies be any different? It still amazes me how many breaks these a-hole cable companies get while the government sticks it to us sat. people.A local CBS affiliate is having this issue with a cable company as well.- Bright House Networks charges you a fee to provide WISH TV 8, MyNDY-TV and WIIH IndyUnivision. It also charges you a fee to provide cable networks, which you may or may not watch. Bright House Networks shares that fee with the cable networks; however, it does not share that fee with us. In essence, it takes our signals for free and resells it for a profit.
- The fair compensation we are asking for as part of our contract negotiations with Bright House Networks amounts to less than a penny a day per station/per subscriber. Cable companies often say that local broadcasters have "unreasonable demands" when it comes to carriage agreements. We do not believe that a penny a day per station/per subscriber is an unreasonable demand for our award-winning news, sports and entertainment programming. It is actually much less than what cable companies compensate many of its cable networks, none of which have the viewing of your local television stations.
- It is unreasonable for Bright House Networks to think that it can carry our signals without paying fair market value, less than a penny a day per station/per subscriber, and still charge you for it. If Bright House Networks provided our signals to you for free, we would not be asking for payment. However, they charge you a lot of money and don't want to pay for the signals.
- We only want the same treatment as the cable networks, so that we can compete on equal footing and provide both high quality local news and premium sports and entertainment programming. Without our fair share of subscriber fees, our news and program quality will suffer and we will not be able to compete with the cable networks.
- Under Federal Law, Bright House Networks cannot carry WISH TV 8, MyNDY-TV and WIIH IndyUnivision without an agreement. LIN TV has successfully reached agreements with every major cable, satellite and telecommunications company, except for Bright House Networks. Our agreements include providers in Indianapolis, such as AT&T, Comcast, DISH, and DirecTV, all of whom have acknowledged the fair market value of LIN TV's stations. We hope Bright House Networks will negotiate with us so that we may reach an agreement before our contract expires on October 2, 2008.http://www.wishtv.com/global/story.asp?s=8908738&ClientType=Printable
Me007gold
10-06-08, 06:37 PM
twc down here in san antonio is getting ready to pull abc for the same reasons
Kdogg
10-06-08, 07:25 PM
Wow, I haven't experienced this here. Though, it wouldn't really matter because I get three NBC affiliates from my cable provider for some reason and two from OTA.
You live in an area with FIVE NBC affilates? Wow, I don't think I have ever seen a place with more than two.
Mordred
10-06-08, 07:29 PM
This makes a lot of sense. Yes, it's free to air BUT the cable company is charging YOU for it. Why shouldn't the stations receive part of that income? AND....DirecTV/Dish have been paying the stations for their signal for years. Why should the cable companies be any different? It still amazes me how many breaks these a-hole cable companies get while the government sticks it to us sat. people.I don't think the cable companies typically charge for the networks because they don't pay anything for the rebroadcast rights. The companies which run the local affiliates (LIN in my case) usually don't charge anything because they are getting the content for free and yet are able to make money on advertising.
My guess is that with the rapid increase in DVRs advertising dollars have gone down and so they're pulling this crap in the hopes of making up for lost revenue. At some point somebody will have to blink though. TW is going to lose customers and LIN is going to lose ad-revenue.
Cancer Man
10-06-08, 07:53 PM
Very stupid. Keep screwing the consumer and you'll lose money, it's not rocket science.
John Slider
10-06-08, 07:55 PM
You live in an area with FIVE NBC affilates? Wow, I don't think I have ever seen a place with more than two.
I was unclear, I receive three via my cable provider, and two of those three I also receive over the air. Detroit, Toledo, and I can't remember what the other is.
Goldberg74
10-06-08, 07:56 PM
twc down here in san antonio is getting ready to pull abc for the same reasons
Wow! Really?
I hadn't heard anything.
I'll be watching for this.
mhg83
10-06-08, 08:33 PM
Just another reason Why i'll never pay for TV. I'm fine with the over the air channels. Any show on cable can now be found on the internet anyways.
maxpower
10-06-08, 10:21 PM
twc vs kxan in austin
twc vs ksat in sa
twc vs nfl network
there appears to be a pattern
beavismom
10-06-08, 11:03 PM
I am another customer getting screwed, but I side more with TWC than KXAN on this one. KXAN provides their content over the air for free (in addition to having most of it online for free) and I don't think it is right for them to turn around and expect TWC to pay them money for the signal. The satellite companies don't have an issue with this because they just turn around and charge the customer for local channels anyway. I am guessing that is what is going to happen with TWC too in the end. At least I am locked into my rate for 2 years.
dgmayor
10-07-08, 09:10 AM
twc vs kxan in austin
twc vs ksat in sa
twc vs nfl network
there appears to be a pattern
twc vs MASN as well.
www.playballnow.org
Chew
10-07-08, 09:58 AM
dont disagree with you about cable companies in general but if you ever look into pricing for "broadcast basic" or whatever your cable company calls channels like abc/cbs/fox/nbc/pbs (in ny it is 2-13) it is only $13 per month which really covers overhead.
you really are paying for everything else more than those basic channels.
When I switched to DirecTV, I still carried the Basic package from TWC for about 2 years in order to get local channels. The price started at $7 and when I dropped it, it was $21. I don't buy the "overhead" argument.
dcprules
10-07-08, 10:31 AM
I used to have Time Warner Cable and got rid of it in early 2007 when they got rid of FOX. I switched over to Dish Network and in our area FOX was finally added back to the Time Warner cable lineup just before the Super Bowl this year. So, cable subscribers were without FOX for a whole year.
Sorry about losing NBC, but it might be time to switch carriers. Especially since it seems Time Warner Cable is in it for the long haul in regarding to negotiating with broadcast companies.
kms_md
10-07-08, 10:42 AM
in st. louis, we have a similar situation. we do not get the CBS affiliate's HD feed over cable. the local affiliate wants charter to pay more for access to the HD signal that they broadcast OTA for free. in this case, i side with charter. however, do not get me started with the bonehead way charter handled losing the nfl network ...
Tracer Bullet
10-07-08, 11:26 AM
I understand the network's point, but I'm not sure they have a case.
heimerSWT
10-07-08, 12:39 PM
Wow! Really?
I hadn't heard anything.
I'll be watching for this.
http://www.ksatcommunity.com/
jpb07
10-07-08, 02:56 PM
I'll ask again...why shouldn't big cable be treated the same as DTV/Dish?
I was one of those who was on the fence about DTV. Do yourself a favor and go to a friend who has it...you'll run home and make the switch. We were in Orlando and only in the strongest of storms did the signal go out. For those times, the 5" OTA antenna that was provided with our HD-DVR picked up almost everything. We came close to going back to cable when we moved to IL and the installer half-assed the install. In the month we had both, Comcast sure earned their Crapcastic nickname. Even their Internet is a million times worse than RoadRunner (Brighthouse/TWC.)
Oh and those of you with Brighthouse know that despite the break from TWC a few years ago, TWC still negotiates for all of their channels? In other words, it's Brighthouse in name only.
Chew
10-07-08, 03:22 PM
Or just go OTA HD and not worry about dealing with any provider, re-broadcast negotiations, or weather issues. :D
Buy: