Sinclair Broadcast Group

Time Warner Cable announced Friday afternoon that it and Sinclair Broadcasting have agreed to extend their retransmission consent negotiations — set to expire tonight at 11:59 — until 11:59 pm on Saturday, Jan. 15. “Negotiations are ongoing with Sinclair, and we’re still working hard to reach an agreement,” a TWC statement said.  “We are still hoping to avoid a broadcaster blackout, but even if Sinclair pulls the plug on Saturday night, Time Warner Cable will continue to provide all available Big 4 network programming to its customers. There is no need for customers to switch, they’ll still have access to all of their favorite network programming.”

The group owner extends contracts with the network through 2012.

Time Warner Cable announced Friday evening that it reached an extension with Sinclair Broadcasting “that will allow our customers to continue to receive all Sinclair Broadcasting stations uninterrupted through Jan. 14 and allow us to continue negotiating to reach a long-term agreement. We thank our customers for their patience and support throughout these negotiations.”

Time Warner Cable says it is continuing to negotiate a new retrans deal, but if talks are unsuccessful by the Dec. 31 deadline and Sinclair pulls its stations, the cable operator will offer programming from the Big 4 networks.

The group owner says talks have broken down after Time Warner Cable turned down a retrans fee of 10 cents per sub and didn’t make a counter offer. TWC says that’s not true and that it remains “open and willing to negotiate a reasonable agreement for our customers and have no intention of declaring negotiations to be at an end even in the event that Sinclair decides to pull their signals from Time Warner Cable on Dec. 31.”

The new two-year retransmission consent agreement between the broadcaster and the cable operator covers 22 stations in 16 markets.

The latest wrinkle in the retrans war is that Time Warner Cable systems can pick up Fox primetime and sports programming if they are denied carriage of the local Fox affiliate. It would appear to undermine the retrans efforts of affiliates, but the network maintains that it really wants to help the affiliates by getting TWC to pick up a “cooling off feed” that comprises the entire affiliate signal for a year. Affiliates are skeptical. Some see it as parternalistic meddling. Others simply aren’t sure what Fox’s intentions are and what the Fox-TWC agreement will mean to their future retrans earnings.

With the fate of millions of Time Warner Cable’s TV subscribers in the balance, the Sinclair station group said TWC has nixed a proposal to settle the parties’ differences through binding arbitration. The two are negotiating how much TWC will pay Sinclair to carry stations covering the slew of TWC customers.

The looming retransmission consent battle between Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcast Group appears to be showing signs of positive movement, with both sides raising the possibility of arbitration to settle the dispute.

When News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting struck a big deal with Time Warner Cable last January for distribution rights to its Fox TV stations, it also included an interesting clause that may give some Fox affiliates headaches.

The former GM of Tribune’s New Orleans duopoly is moving to Minneapolis to head Sinclair’s CW affil.

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