Time Warner Temporarily Removes CBS in Major Cities.

[elleng]

Source: nyt

CBS stations were temporarily removed from cable systems in millions of homes in major cities — including New York and Los Angeles — about midnight on Monday, after protracted negotiations between CBS and Time Warner Cable over fees collapsed.

But after an exchange of recrimination-filled statements, and less than a half-hour of cable interruption, the cable company announced that it had halted the blackout of the stations at CBS’s request.

The mercurial series of events followed a daylong negotiation, which was full of fits and starts. The two sides negotiated all day and night Monday, after weeks of public posturing over which side was being more unreasonable in its demands over what are known as retransmission fees. Throughout Monday night, a series of one-hour extensions in the talks seemed to portend that an agreement was near.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/business/media/time-warner-cbs.html?_r=0&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1375167739-v6JKg6UHd4gnD8lTxaVZLA

[PoliticAverse]

1. If only there was a computer network one could use to bypass cable companies... n/t

[msongs]

2. considering that cable is a monopoly in most places they got a lotta nerve lol nt

[Hekate]

3. How bizarre.

In my area we are stuck with Cox Cable, because without it the only channel that comes in is a snowy version of ABC, thanks to a curve in the coastline between us and Los Angeles.

[onenote]

6. Don't satellite signals reach you?

DirecTV or Dish? As a factual matter, cable is no longer a "monopoly" in most areas because most areas can receive satellite service that provides a comparable channel line up (including local broadcast signals) to cable. Twenty years ago, over 90 percent of all "pay television" customers received service from their local cable company. Today, that percentage has dropped to around 55 percent. Three of the four largest pay television providers are competitors to the incumbent cable companies (DirecTV, Dish, and Verizon) and AT&T, another competing service provider, is now the 9th largest.

[LiberalFighter]

12. I use satellite for my non local stations. OTA for local.

[mwooldri]

14. "snowy" ???

In "Ye Olden Analogue Days", I'd say that I got about 3-4 channels here in the Greensboro, NC area that I would consider a "good" picture. The others were "watchable" but certainly had snow, ghosting and obvious other interference in the picture.

Digital has changed all of that. The picture you get is either there, or not. There is the "digital cliff" where the signal cannot be decoded properly by the receiver so the picture becomes blocky and the sound is choppy.

An outside antenna (if possible) really helps. So our current home set up can now receive all of our "in-market" channels, plus a few of the stations from outside the local area (Raleigh, NC and Roanoke, VA). With the exception of our NBC affiliate, all stations come in with a steady, unbroken picture 98% of the time. The NBC affiliate breaks up more often because of the way the antenna is mounted and it doesn't have a rotator as in days gone by.

I'm sure that given an outdoor antenna hooked up to a TV set capable of receiving digital broadcast signals, you could receive a good version of ABC, and quite likely many others. Even with an indoor antenna improvements are obvious - stations that were "there" but unwatchable are clean and clear in digital. Now I will state that people who had access to a certain channel in analog days lost it with the digital switchover

Try this link http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/ - plug in your address, and see what the FCC thinks you should be able to receive. The stations in green are ones you should be able to get easily with an indoor antenna. The yellow ones should be easy with an outdoor antenna but a bit of a struggle with an indoor one. The orange ones do need an outdoor antenna and even then there is no guarantee of getting them.

If your address comes up with a lot of "green" stations, give it a go with an indoor antenna... even if it is a lot of "yellow" ones try it anyway, because it could work.

As for that ABC station being "snowy" there is an unlikely possibility that the station in question is being transmitted in analogue from a nearby translator. Low powered stations and translators can still broadcast in analogue in the interim - though why the switch wouldn't be made I don't know... a local low-powered TV station whose signal was barely watchable outside of Reidsville, NC... when they went digital they did manage to get a channel to broadcast on and gained a larger coverage area, even though there was no increase to the transmitters' power output.

[alp227]

36. Hmm. more likely because of the Santa Monica Mtns on that curve.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=80&q=call%3dKABC-TV%26type%3dD%26sitenum%3d0

KABC's signal does get weak (blue/purple) and even invisible west of Santa Monica.

[Hekate]

37. On the Central Coast the ocean is actually to our south

US 101 North heads due west until you get to Gaviota.

Anyhow, when we first moved in to our house 31 years ago there was a ginormous roof antenna, which we had taken down when we replaced the roof. Channel 3, locally KEYT, was about it without the antenna. Cable's a great innovation but I dislike the monopoly aspect of it. Hubby's been resistant to getting a satellite subscription, and I don't really care, since all we get is basic cable anyway. If Cox would let us pick and choose which channels we want in our package instead of saddling us with Home Shopping Network and the like, I'd pay for more, but as it is I've had two channels (MTV and FOX) blocked for years.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Letterman is going to have fun with this.

[valerief]

15. He's the only thing good on CBS. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. The clip is up....

http://www.cbs.com/shows/late_show/video/O58QxEG_755h0S1tj2VgBsnpBUqwvCw6/david-letterman-where-s-dave-in-the-cbs-time-warner-dispute-/

[valerief]

19. Says clip is not available or may have expired. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. I just checked it again and it worked.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. Here ya go....

[valerief]

29. Ha! Thanks. Love Dave!!! nt

[burnodo]

31. I prefer Craigy Ferg

[valerief]

32. Ah, yes. Maybe you're right. nt

[christx30]

5. This article is misleading.

TWC did not remove CBS. The contract between TWC and CBS was up for renewal. At 5PM EST, the contract between CBS and TWC expired, and TWC was legally forced to stop rebroadcast CBS until a new contract was drawn up. CBS wanted a 600% increase in rebroadcast fees. TWC was negotiating a better deal.

[onenote]

7. correct. If CBS goes "dark" its because CBS is refusing to allow

Time Warner Cable to carry it.

[Orsino]

33. ...which in turn is because TWC isn't yet offering to pay what CBS wants.

Each party wants to blame the other, but all we can really say is that they didn't reach an agreement before the contract deadline.

And outages for customers are merely another negotiating tool.

[onenote]

34. Yes, but the power to force a shutdown ultimately lies entirely with CBS

Time Warner Cable cannot legally carry CBS owned stations if do not have CBS's permission. So it entirely in CBS' power to grant that permission while the parties continue to negotiate (with the understanding that if and when a deal is struck it, any increse in what Time Warner Cable pays now will be retroactive to the date on which the original agreement expired).

[Orsino]

38. The power to give CBS what they want similarly lies with TWC.

Perhaps they could have earned a temporary respite with more concessions.

This is not a unilateral thing...or if it is, we will never be able to prove it.

[davidpdx]

8. 600% increase

The bad news is that would have gotten passed on to the consumer. CBS stands for Criminal Butthole Swindlers

[sweetloukillbot]

17. The Cable/ISP I work for went thru this with AMC earlier this year

They wanted a 500% price increase and we didn't want to pay it. They started running crawls over "Walking Dead" telling viewers we were going to take it away, took out full page ads to counteract our company's "Lies", set up dummy websites to get viewers to flood us with e-mails. They even cut the feed on Walking Dead completely at one point during negotiations - before the contract expired - just to anger our customers at us and try and force our hand.
We went thru issues with Fox a few years ago as well - my company serves small towns and in a few areas we were broadcasting the Fox feed from the nearest major city - they wanted us to use the Fox feed from a smaller, closer market instead and refused retransmission rights from the larger markets.
Cable Companies are greedy, but the broadcasters are greedier.

[christx30]

25. Cable companies are greedy

because the broadcasters are greedy. 47% of your bill if rebroadcasting rights

[sweetloukillbot]

27. And all those channels that people say they don't want and don't want to pay for...

They're included because the broadcasters won't give rights for the stations people do want without including the junk stations.

[6000eliot]

9. These huge corporations should stop trying to enlist their customers

to do their negotiating for them. It pisses me off to have those intrusive banners and ads running constantly, since I don't even have TWC.

[christx30]

10. I got an email today at work about this part:

But after an exchange of recrimination-filled statements, and less than a half-hour of cable interruption, the cable company announced that it had halted the blackout of the stations at CBS’s request.

They got a contract extension until midnight on August 2nd. This kind of stuff happens all the time. Lawyers in a smoke filled room somewhere haggle and curse, then hammer out a deal at the last minute.

But why should TWC pay that much for rebroadcast rights of crap programming, which is available free from other sources? It's like being asked to pay $2000 for a copy of the phone book.

[Javaman]

11. Next year we get google...

I'm dumping time warner.

[christx30]

28. If you're going for the "free"

Google Internet, keep in mind there is a $200 construction fee (or you can pay $25/mo). And if you have to move, it won't wont move with you. And your new neighborhood might not have it.
They will divide your city up into "fiberhoods", and open per-registration up city wide for 6 weeks. They will then decide which fiberhoods will get it. If fiberhood #7 gets 500 homes, but fiberhood #15 only gets 163 homes, they won't enter #15 at all.

[Javaman]

30. I'll take my chances. TW stinks. nt

[marble falls]

13. A pox on both their houses.

[Trillo]

16. I'm sure our regulators will insure subscribers get a generous refund

for that time of blackout.

[elleng]

20. Sure!

"Our regulators" enabled this b.s. to occur, that is, our regulators along w government that decided the 'free market' is so much better than regulation.

[Trillo]

21. Agreed. I should have used the /sarcasm thingy. NT

[elleng]

22. Gotcha.

[Politicalboi]

26. My next "cable" will be

An antenna. I have Roku, so all I really need is internet connection.

[NuttyFluffers]

35. cable cartels

almost as fun as OPEC!