Time Warner Cable

This was an important part of the controversial $3.6 billion deal that Verizon cut in late 2011 with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other cable operators. The cable guys ditched their plans to create their own wireless phone service, selling spectrum they controlled to Verizon with an agreement to jointly develop new products and cross-promote each other’s services in markets where they don’t compete head-to-head. But in August the technology venture was quietly “terminated and we are moving in our separate ways on that,” Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told analysts today.

Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications and Time Warner Cable have signed a new, multiyear distribution deal that includes carriage of several of Univision’s new networks including the highly anticipated El Rey Network.

It’s been true for a while now that new cable subscribers are fairly thin on the ground — Time Warner Cable has picked an innovative way to make up the shortfall today by purchasing the North Carolina fiber optic cable network DukeNet in a $600 million cash deal. Based in North Carolina, the network also serves South Carolina and five other states in the Southeast.

Time Warner Cable used the dispute as a lesson for other station groups, local and nationally, hoping to raise retransmission fees, but likely lost customers. Journal Broadcast ended the blackout just in time for NBC’s fall prime-time TV season, but TWC bumped them to channel 2, even though the station has been on channel 4 since 1953.

Although Journal Broadcast Group negotiated a new contract on the retransmission fee for its NBC affiliate — which most people in Milwaukee know as TMJ4 — Time Warner Cable replaced the news station’s channel 4 with the Game Show Network. Journal executives don’t like it, but have decided to roll with the punches. “This (blackout) was a great distraction ultimately for the viewers, so we made the accommodation,” Journal EVP Steve Wexler said.

A new, long-term retransmission consent agreement restores five Journal stations to Time Warner Cable subscribers in four markets — Milwaukee, Green Bay, Omaha and Palm Springs.Financial terms were not disclosed, but the stations retain their original channel positions and TV Everywhere rights.

A blackout of Journal Broadcast Group’s WTMJ Milwaukee on Time Warner Cable systems has dragged on for 55 days and has become a line in the sand in the national battle between broadcasters and pay-TV services over fees, programming and viewers.

The CBS-TWC settlement makes all broadcasters  winners, assuming they can continue to ward off government intervention. The deal demonstrates the continued attractiveness of broadcasting programming and (particularly sports) and its puts upward pressure on all retrans fees.

The CBS-Time Warner deal, regardless of its economic terms, is a watershed event. It presented one of the most politically-appealing invitations for the government to second guess the path of a free market retrans negotiation, and the government declined to do so. Perhaps just as important, viewers came to realize that the sun still rose in the morning despite the CBS blackout, antenna manufacturers enjoyed a sales boost, and a retrans deal was achieved in less time than it typically takes Congress to name a post office.

CBS Corp won large increases in the fees it will receive from Time Warner Cable in its agreement with the cable operator that ended a month-long blackout of CBS, Showtime and other channels in key cities on Monday, analysts say.

The month-long payment dispute has ended and Time Warner Cable customers had their CBS programming restored by 6 p.m. ET Monday.

When it comes to retransmission consent disputes, over-the-air antennas may not be the perfect solution, but they have gotten better. Here’s a look at the digital TV transition and maps of DTV reception in major cities affected by the CBS-TWC dispute.

CBS Corp. aired ads in three major U.S. markets this week urging fans to switch television providers before the start of the professional and college football seasons to pressure Time Warner Cable to end a month-long blackout over fee increases.

Peyton and Eli Manning may play a starring role in bringing the long-running CBS-Time Warner Cable fight to an end while at the same time putting pressure on Washington to change the law at the heart of the dispute. The contract battle, which has dragged on for nearly a month. But if it plays out like other major retrans spats in recent years, a major sports event like the Sept. 15 Manning brothers matchup in the Giants-Broncos game may act as a catalyst to bring the companies together for an agreement.

The FCC says it’s working to resolve a fee dispute that has kept CBS Corp. programming off Time Warner Cable systems serving more than 3 million viewers since Aug. 2. “The commission is engaged at the highest levels with the respective parties and working to bring the impasse to an end,” Justin Cole, an agency spokesman, said yesterday. “We urge all parties to resolve this matter as quickly as possible so consumers can access the programming they rely on and are paying for.” The statement didn’t offer details.

Meet Melinda Witmer. She is the smart, hard-nosed lawyer who is behind Time Warner Cable efforts to pay broadcasters the least in retransmission consent fees and extract the most from other pay TV operators for TWC’s regional sport networks in Los Angeles. Executives who have done business with Witmer say she stands out, negotiating like a courtroom trial prosecutor, quick to identify loopholes and potential snags. Her tactics have led to TWC being involved in more retrans blackout than any other cable operator. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

Time Warner Cable will offer free antennas starting Friday, allowing customers to receive blacked-out CBS stations over the air. Customers will be able to collect them at local TWC offices.

Former FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps: The CBS-Time Warner Cable stand-off “goes beyond programming to the functionality of the Internet itself. CBS is blacking out access to CBS.com for Time Warner Cable broadband customers nationwide — even those outside the affected markets and even those who are not cable television subscribers! CBS is perpetrating an audacious violation of the FCC Open Internet (“net neutrality”) rules. These rules guarantee consumer access to lawful content. They are designed to prevent just this sort of corporate censorship. Someone here needs to stand up for consumers.”

CBS and Time Warner Cable have agreed to suspend the blackout in New York — but only long enough to air debates among candidates in two of the city’s political races.

Ken Auletta: What we’re witnessing are not the deliberate, calculated moves of two skilled chess players but, rather, two aging players who fear that their game is being disrupted. Thirty years ago, the traditional TV world was blindsided by cable; today, cable operators and traditional TV are both being blindsided by a new crop of technologies. Whenever the blackout ends, the underlying upheaval that helped to cause it won’t go away.

Verizon FiOS is throwing a bone to CBS employees who can no longer watch the network in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas because of the broadcaster’s three-week-old fight with Time Warner Cable. In a memo to staffers, CBS said Verizon FiOS is offering employees “exclusive discounts and special promotions.” Verizon is even going to send sales teams to CBS offices in those cities this week to sign up new customers.

The contract dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable is approaching the two-week mark with no hint of an imminent settlement. Neither side in the standoff has mentioned any progress over the last several days. Both have continued to level charges and accusations of blame for TWC’s decision to remove CBS’s stations in areas the cable company covers, which include subscribers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.

Fox announced Thursday that its new national sports network — Fox Sports 1 — is set to bow Saturday with all major cable, satellite and telco TV operators, including late holdouts DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable. FS1 will be distributed to about 90 million U.S. households, according to Fox.

With Time Warner and CBS locked in a nasty contractual dispute, leaving 3.2 million cable customers without the network, Verizon is beginning to benefit. The telecom giant, according to industry sources, has seen its FiOS subscription base rise between 5% and 15% in various neighborhoods compared to last year.

Avoiding the carriage disputes that threatened to undermine their Aug, 17 launch, national cable channels Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 are on target for distribution deals with Time Warner Cable, Comcast, DirecTV and Dish, according to sources. While the ancestors for those channels, Speed and Fuel, had existing agreements with the distributors, terms had to be renegotiated given the higher profiles that FS1 and FS2 will have nationally.

Southern California residents demand to be reimbursed for channels blacked out during the fee fight.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Monday sent a letter to CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves and Time Warner Cable chief Glenn Britt, urging them to end the dispute that has resulted in CBS-owned channels being blacked out in Los Angeles, New York and Dallas for a second week.

The blackout on Time Warner Cable systems, which is affecting 3.2 million customers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, has created a double-digit spike in antennas in those markets at RadioShack, a spokeswoman for the electronics retailer said Monday.

Time Warner Cable reiterated that it will not issue credits to 3 million-plus customers related to the blackout of CBS stations in New York, L.A. and Dallas — which is now in Day 11 — while it will credit Showtime subscribers who have lost the network.

Three frustrated Time Warner Cable customers on Thursday sued the cable TV provider over its decision last month to drop Journal Broadcast-owned NBC affiliate WTMJ Milwaukee from its lineup. TWC dropped WTMJ on July 25 over a retrans contract dispute. Both companies have been running public relations campaigns ever since trying to convince the public the other side is making unreasonable demands.

Digital video rights have become a major sticking point in the carriage dispute between Time Warner Cable and CBS Corp., according to the Wall Street Journal. In their negotiations, the companies made significant progress on the money Time Warner Cable would pay to carry the CBS TV signals, but one big roadblock was that the cable operator believes those fees should also buy it the rights to distribute content via on-demand platforms, people familiar with the talks say. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

At a New York City Council hearing, the two companies said that they had resumed negotiations over retransmission fees. As the blackout goes into its seventh day and as CBS is scheduled to broadcast the final rounds of the PGA Championship this weekend, the pressure is on to strike a deal. The City Council is urging the FCC to intervene.

CBS EVP Martin Franks made the disclosure — which Time Warner Cable confirms — in response to questions at a meeting today called by a New York City Council subcommittee looking at the nearly week-long programming black out on TWC’s systems. No details yet on what compromises, if any, the companies are making in the dispute

The percent of illegal downloads of Monday’s episode from areas affected by the dispute increased dramatically.

In the heat of its nasty contractual dispute with CBS — which has left millions of subscribers without the Eye Network and Showtime for nearly a week — the cable giant is now threatening to yank a slew of other channels. According to a legal notice the cable giant quietly posted in newspapers today, its deals with more than 50 channels are due to expire soon, “and we may be required to cease carriage of one or more of these … stations in the near future.” Among them: Lifetime, E!, Style, Turner Classic Movies, the NHL Network and a host of foreign-language channels.

If the Time Warner Cable blackout is hurting CBS, there is at least one figure offering striking evidence to the contrary. By one measure, household primetime ratings on Tuesday were down a mere 2% in the New York market. After that, though, things aren’t as rosy.

Regulators in Washington probably won’t heed Time Warner Cable’s call for help in a dispute that has blocked CBS shows from more than 3 million subscribers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. TWC, in a letter to the FCC released Aug. 5, asked the agency for “prompt action” to alter the rules to address “coercive” tactics by CBS. But FCC Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn has said the agency lacks the authority to intervene, and rewriting rules for settling such disputes would take too long to end the current disruption, according to Paul Gallant, Washington-based managing director at Guggenheim Securities.

The board of directors of the CBS Television Network Affiliates Association today came out in support of CBS Corp. in its retransmission consent dispute with Time Warner Cable.