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Time Warner & CBS Reach Content Carriage Agreement (New York, Dallas, LA)

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HurricaneHowieWood:
One month to the day the that the CBS blackout on Time Warner Cable began, it is over.

The two sides have reached an agreeement and CBS programming will resume on affected Time Warner Systems by 6PM ET today, 9/2

More details as they become available!

Updates will be posted as they become available.  For those of you affected by the blackout, please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in this thread. 

Links are provided at the bottom of this post for both show discussion & live streams(based on the Eastern Time Zone start)


Updates:

1) 7/23 5:16PM ET - The deadline has been extended till 9am EDT Thursday.  But this would still mean no Live Eviction Episode on CBS in these markets

2) 7/24 9:04PM ET - As of right now it doesn't look like an agreement will be reached to prevent CBS from being blacked-out on the Time Warner Systems in question.  If CBS is blacked out in your area, don't forget we will have a link for the Live Eviction Episode Stream.

3) 7/25 3:38AM ET - CBS & Time Warner have reached another extension ... "Both parties have agreed to an extension through Monday, July 29 at 5 p.m"  So it appears for right now Thursday's Eviction and Sunday's episodes of Big Brother will be watchable on CBS for Time Warner Customers.  Beyond that remains in the air.

4) 7/25 4:19PM ET - In a less publicized dispute viewers of KMTV (CBS) in Omaha, Neb. on the Time Warner owned cable system, lost their CBS network of Midnight.   

5) 7/29 3:36PM ET - Both sides are still at the table, but as of right now no agreement has been reached.  If no agreement or extension is reached by 5PM EDT, today CBS stations on Time Warner will go dark in New York, Dallas-Forth Worth, and LA.

6) 7/29 5:20PM ET - Could a deal be close?  But sides have said they have extended the deadline from 5PM EDT to 8PM EDT.

7) 7/29 8:28PM ET  - The deadline has been pushed again to 9PM EDT.

8 ) 7/29 9:13PM ET - The deadline has been pushed for the sixth time to 10PM EDT.

9) 7/30 2:23AM ET - It appears that for the moment CBS will remain on the Time Warner Systems in LA, NY and Dallas.  Time Warner was set to pull the plug, however at the request of CBS has agreed not to for the moment.  A new agreement, however still has not been reached.

10) 7/30 3:26PM ET - Well we now have a new deadline both sides have agreed to extend the deadline to 5PM ET on Aug, 2 while the negotiations continue.

11) 8/2 6:23PM ET - As of 5PM ET it looks like Time Warner has pulled CBS in Dallas, New York, And LA.

12) 8/2 9:14PM ET - Well this is getting ugly in hurry.  CBS has taken the fight on-line, pulling full episode streaming for all Time Warner Broadband Customers across the US, not just those in the Blackout affected markets.

13) 8/3 11:29PM ET - Complete list of all CBS stations on Blackout added.

14) 8/5 10:28PM ET - Today Time Warner offered CBS two choices, 1) Take the offer they made last week or 2) We will offer CBS A La Carte and you(CBS) can keep the all the fees.

CBS Countered calling the offers a Sham, meant to distract that Time Warner was not trying to make deal in good faith

Time Warner Responded: "Now Time Warner Cable has a response to CBS’ response to TWC’s proposal to offer CBS stations on an a la carte basis: It says if the effort to revive negotiations was “sincere.” It adds: “We’re disappointed in their lack of responsiveness, particularly to our request for them to quit unfairly blocking the free content available on CBS.com from our Internet customers. We hope they will return to the table to negotiate in good faith on behalf of our customers and their viewers.”"

So it looks like it might still be a while before the two companies resolve their differences and customers affected by this CBS Blackout, can watch Big Brother or any other CBS show on there TV without and antenna.

15) 8/9 6:00PM ET - Day 8, and as of right now it looks like we are no closer to having this blackout resolved.

16) 9/2 5:27PM ET - The dispute has been resolved and CBS will return to affected Time Warner Systems, by 6PM ET

To our friends on Time Warner Cable, don't forget we do offer:

Episode Discussions:
Show Discussion Thread

Live Streams (Based on Eastern Time Zone):
Live Eviction Stream Links

HurricaneHowieWood:
CBS, Time Warner Cable waiting for the other guy to blink
By Mark Lacter | July 22, 2013 11:53 AM 
 
They have until Wednesday to resolve a payment dispute that threatens to take KCBS and KCAL off the TWC lineup. Also affected would be the NY and Dallas markets. CBS-owned stations currently receive between 75 cents and $1 per subscriber, but CBS, looking to bring in more revenue from re-transmission fees, is asking for roughly twice that, according to news reports. As is common in these kerfuffles, each side is lobbying for viewer support so as to pressure the other (KCAL was airing sky-is-falling notices during the Dodger game on Sunday). Actually, this is a slow-ish time for TV watching, so it wouldn't be surprising to see CBS pulling the plug, at least for a bit. It's really a numbers game: CBS has to calculate how much advertising revenue would be lost short term, while Time Warner Cable must figure out its losses from cable subscribers. Not to sound like a cliche, but the stakes are huge: Any deal with CBS could be used by other content providers in future negotiations with TWC. Overlaying the talks are other factors - TWC is shelling out huge money for its new LA sports channels; CBS is under pressure from Aereo, the startup that streams broadcast signals over the Web in NY and other markets (but not LA); and viewers are being lost to streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. There also are rumors that TWC could be sold. From the WSJ:

The companies have until Wednesday to strike a carriage deal. Otherwise, roughly three million Time Warner Cable customers in markets including New York, Los Angeles and Dallas could see CBS's flagship broadcast network disappear from their cable service. CBS's Showtime premium network would also be dropped. CBS has a lot riding on the talks. The company has told investors it plans to roughly quadruple the so-called retransmission revenue it receives from pay-TV operators to $1 billion by 2017, translating to about $1.20 to $1.25 a subscriber per month, according to analyst estimates. Are fans of CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" about to get a big surprise and see it taken off the primetime schedule? Amol Sharma has the latest on CBS's impending battle with Time Warner Cable over a new carriage agreement.

From my piece on TWC in the June issue of Los Angeles magazine:

Between 2007 and 2012, Time Warner Cable's video subscribers fell about 8 percent, or by 1 million (another 119,000 were lost during the first quarter of 2013). Profits were up 29 percent last year, though that was largely because of the company's growing Internet and phone services. TV is another story: In the past four years program fees surged 32 percent, more than three times as much as the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. During that time, subscription bills went up, too, but according to chief executive Glenn Britt, not enough to offset the increases paid to content providers. Britt says that the industry is going through a "complicated set of structural imbalances" that hurts consumers as well as the bottom line. "It's clear that it can't continue forever," he told analysts. "What is less clear is what will happen to change the situation or when."

http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2013/07/cbs_time_warner_cabl.php

HurricaneHowieWood:
CBS's Standoff With Time Warner Cable Heats Up; Blackouts Could Happen Next Week
By Tim Kenneally | The Wrap – Fri, Jul 19, 2013 1:07 PM PDT

CBS's Standoff With Time Warner Cable Heats Up; Blackouts Could Happen Next WeekView PhotoCBS's Standoff With Time Warner Cable Heats Up; Blackouts Could Happen Next Week

With a July 24 deadline looming, Wall Street analysts are warning that a standoff between CBS and Time Warner Cable could lead to a CBS blackout. The blackout could affect 3.5 million homes -- roughly 29 percent of Time Warner Cable's video subscriptions -- in Texas, New York and Los Angeles, Wells Fargo Securities analyst Marci Ryvicker noted in a report.

This would mark the first time that CBS has allowed its signal to go dark in a retransmission dispute.

An agreement struck in 2009 by the two companies expired at the end of June, and an extension is due to expire on Wednesday.

CBS declined to disclose the rates it is seeking, but analysts say that the network is seeking about $2 per subscriber, from an estimated 75 cents to $1.

The two parties are accusing each other of hardball negotiating tactics.

CBS told TheWrap in a statement that the company "remains committed to working towards a mutually agreeable contract," and accused TWC of being unwilling to negotiate the same type of deals as other transmitters.

"Time Warner Cable is planning to drop the most popular programming in its entire channel lineup because it won't negotiate the same sort of deal that all other cable, satellite and telco companies have struck with CBS," CBS said. "Time Warner Cable has dropped nearly 50 channels in the last five years. CBS has never been dropped by a cable company before."

CBS, which released an ad directed at viewers in the possibly affected areas, is directing fans to the website KeepCBS.com, which urges fans to take action against the potential blackout.

Time Warner Cable, which has released its own ad covering the dispute (see above), claims that CBS is asking for 600 percent more in the potentially affected markets -- primarily, New York, Los Angeles and Dallas -- than TWC pays for the content in other areas. TWC calls that request "unprecedented."

"CBS wants Time Warner Cable to pay over 600 percent more than we pay in other areas from coast to coast for the same programming," Time Warner Cable said. "It's unreasonable to expect our subscribers and Time Warner Cable to pay that price and we are negotiating very hard for a reasonable price. This is not a standard debate over price increases. This is different.  CBS's demand for a 600 percent premium is unprecedented."

"We're going to continue to negotiate and hope to come to a reasonable resolution before our deadline, so that our customers don't have to endure yet another broadcaster blackout," TWC added.

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/cbss-standoff-time-warner-cable-heats-blackouts-could-200700214.html

TexasLady:
I hope they settle this soon!  Thanks for alerting us Howie! 

HurricaneHowieWood:
CBS blackout looms for Time Warner Cable customers
By Katie Lobosco  @KatieLobosco  July 23, 2013: 1:22 PM ET

We've heard the threat before: your favorite shows are being held hostage. This time, the dispute is between Time Warner Cable and CBS.

Time Warner Cable (TWC, Fortune 500) claims that CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) is demanding a big rate hike for cable customers in major cities. The cable giant says the fees will amount to 600% more than customers in other parts of the country will pay.

If the two companies do not soon come to an agreement about the fees, CBS could block Time Warner Cable customers from watching the channel and hit shows like "Under the Dome," "NCIS" and "The Big Bang Theory."

On Tuesday, the two companies extended the deadline to a 9 a.m. Thursday. This is the second time the self-imposed deadline has been extended since the contract between Time Warner Cable and CBS over the fee expired earlier this year.

Cable companies and satellite providers typically pay broadcasters "retransmission fees" in order to air the network's programming. It's not always the national networks like CBS, Fox (FOX), Disney's (DIS, Fortune 500) ABC and Comcast's (CMCSA) NBC, that Time Warner Cable must negotiate with -- the cable provider has to agree to terms with all the various local affiliate stations to carry the national networks' content in each metropolitan area, many of which are owned by companies other than the big broadcasters.

That's where the latest round of deal-making is getting held up: CBS is currently negotiating on behalf of the several local affiliate networks it owns outright, and Time Warner Cable argues that CBS is demanding fees that are much larger than the fees it pays to other independent local stations that carry CBS shows.

Some analysts think CBS is holding most of the cards, given it attracted more viewers than any other network last season, as it has done 10 times in the past 11 years.

But BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote in a analyst note Monday that "CBS is overestimating its leverage in this battle." The network will not begin showing its new fall lineup until late September, two months from now, and the network's next major national sports event, the U.S. Open Tennis Championship, will not air until September 8.

Customers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit and Denver could be affected, according to Time Warner Cable. But customers in other areas of the country are not in jeopardy of losing the CBS channel.

CBS has been running TV commercials warning customers of the negotiations and that "Time Warner Cable is threatening to hold your favorite shows hostage."

"Time Warner Cable is planning to drop the most popular programming in its entire channel lineup because it won't negotiate the same sort of deal that all other cable, satellite and telco companies have struck with CBS," the company said in a prepared statement. "CBS remains committed to working towards a mutually agreeable contract."

Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Maureen Huff said that the company's executives are also hoping to reach a fair agreement.

"We are willing to pay for CBS, and we have offered them significant fees," Huff said. "But their current demands don't represent a good value for our customers."

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/technology/time-warner-cbs-dispute/index.html

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