Time Warner Cable

Was Time Warner Cable being hypocritical this week when it proposed to carry CBS-owned stations on an a la carte basis — which CEO Les Moonves rejected as PR “grandstanding”? The broadcaster distributed evidence today to support that view, including a class action suit filed in June that accused Time Warner Cable of abusing its distribution clout in Southern California by failing to give subscribers a choice to pay for TWC channels that offer Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers games.

Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who recently won John F. Kerry’s Senate seat, on Tuesday asked the FCC to step in and restart retrans negotiations between the broadcast network and the cable MSO. “I believe the public interest would be best served if carriage is restored by the parties at the earliest possible time so that consumers are not long caught in the middle,” he said.

In a letter released Tuesday, Moonves rebuffed Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt’s offer to allow CBS to sell its programming to consumers “a la carte” instead of bundled with other channels.

CBS isn’t buying Time Warner Cable’s public proposal for a compromise to get the network back on the air. “Today’s so-called proposal is a sham, a public relations vehicle designed to distract from the fact that Time Warner Cable is not negotiating in good faith,” CBS said.

The proposal, in a letter from CEO Glenn Britt to CBS chief Les Moonves, offers to resume carriage of CBS stations and channels including Showtime “with the new economics TWC reluctantly agreed to during our negotiations, while employing all the other terms and conditions of our recently expired contracts.”

Three million Time Warner Cable customers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and other cities remained without access to CBS for a third day on Sunday, after the cable provider dropped the network in a spat over fees. The two sides couldn’t agree on the status of their talks either, with CBS saying on Sunday that no negotiations were taking place. A Time Warner representative maintained that, “Talks continue.”

On Friday, CBS and Time Warner Cable failed to reach a new retransmission consent agreement by their 5 p.m. deadline and the cable company has dropped the No. 1 primetime network in key markets across the country.

Time Warner Cable saw revenues climb 2.7% to $5.5 billion while profits rose 14.7% to $1.64 per share for the second quarter. Analysts had anticipated revenues of  $5.58 billion for the quarter and earnings per share of $1.66.

CBS chief Les Moonves couldn’t resist alluding to his tense retransmission consent negotiations with Time Warner Cable — even though he didn’t want to address the matter directly in a Wednesday conference call with analysts. “We will update you when we have more news,” he said in prepared remarks, adding that CBS will remain “resolute” as it faces a Friday deadline when its stations might go dark on TWC cable systems in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.

The two sides negotiated through the day Monday to avoid a programming blackout, then set a new deadline of Friday, Aug. 2, at 5 p.m. Eastern time. Late last night, Time Warner Cable briefly took down CBS stations, but quickly reinstated them at the broadcaster’s request and continued negotiations.

Time Warner Cable now says it has agreed to yet another extension with CBS “while we continue negotiations.” This moves the deadline to Friday, Aug. 2, at 5 p.m. Eastern time.

CBS and Time Warner Cable are still engaged in “very difficult negotiations” over how much TWC will pay CBS-owned stations per subscriber, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves told TV critics at TCA Summer TV Press Tour today. “The deadline is 5 p.m. ET today — I hope we don’t go dark.”

Chairman-CEO Glenn Britt will be succeeded  at the end of the year by President-COO Robert Marcus. Marcus, 48 joined Time Warner Inc. in 1998 and moved to TWC in 2005. He was named chief financial officer in 2008. Marcus worked side by side with Britt during TWC’s 2009 spin-off from Time Warner Inc.

This dispute doesn’t have the titan-vs.-titan glamour of Time Warner Cable’s fight with CBS — where negotiators gave themselves until Monday to agree on retransmission consent terms. But it’s important to a little more than 500,000 Time Warner Cable customers who today find themselves without Journal Communications’ NBC programming in Milwaukee; Green Bay, Wis.; and Palm Springs, Calif.; and CBS in Omaha, Neb.

The owners of video streaming site Hulu called off talks with Time Warner Cable over the cable operator’s plan to take a 25% stake after failing to agree on a price, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations.

The parties again have set a new deadline to settle their retransmission consent battle: This time it’s 5 p.m. ET on Monday. The fight involves CBS-owned stations that reach some 3.5 million Time Warner Cable homes, primarily in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.

The previous deadline of Wednesday has been moved to 9 a.m. ET Thursday. CBS boss Leslie Moonves says Time Warner Cable can afford to compensate CBS fairly without passing the cost on to customers. Meanwhile, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable says that it has offered CBS significant fees, but “their current demands don’t represent a good value for our customers.”

CBS and Time Warner Cable are waging a public war of words in a retrans dispute that threatens to knock 13 CBS-owned stations off TWC systems in eight major markets. But CBS is bolstered by another potent weapon in this fight: multiple top-tier radio stations in the three markets — New York, Los Angeles and Dallas — most affected by the contract wrangle. And those stations have added the spots on heavy rotation, judging from a quick survey of the L.A. dial on Friday morning.

As another television programming blackout looms, this time because of a high-stakes negotiation between the CBS Corporation and Time Warner Cable, there is a new wrinkle, courtesy of Aereo, the start-up that streams broadcast TV via the Internet. While Time Warner Cable does not seem ready or willing to deploy Aereo-like technology, a spokeswoman, Maureen Huff, said Sunday that it would recommend Aereo to its New York subscribers if CBS was blacked out.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is suing Time Warner Cable, claiming Time Warner breached a contract between the two companies by moving the Syracuse, N.Y., MNT affiliate that’s managed by Sinclair to a less favorable tier on Time Warner’s cable lineup.

CBS starts an ad blitz in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere claiming its stations are being held “hostage” as the cable provider bemoans the “unreasonable” 600% increase it claims the network’s seeking.

Although neither side is taking shots at each other publicly, there is an undercurrent of tension between Time Warner Cable and CBS Corp. as the two companies attempt to negotiate a new distribution deal. Time Warner Cable’s agreement to carry CBS-owned TV stations, the basic cable channels CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian, and the pay network Showtime expired at the end of June. Since then, there have been a couple of extensions, the latest one running to a few days before the end of the month.

Negotiations failed between Journal Broadcast Group and Time Warner Cable, which means the cable provider will no longer be allowed to carry the Palm Springs, Calif., MNT affiliate. A June 30 deadline was extended to 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. But that deadline ran out with no new deal, a Time Warner spokesman said late Wednesday.

Several companies put in initial bids to buy the video streaming service, and now it’s looking like both DirecTV and Time Warner also made follow-up offers.

Negotiations between CBS and Time Warner Cable to renew their four-year-old pact — covering retransmission of CBS owned-and-operated TV stations and carriage of cable nets including Showtime — are expected to take several more weeks to resolve, according to a source familiar with the talks.

Apple Inc. is nearing a deal with Time Warner Cable to give subscribers of the cable television service access to channels via Apple TV, people with knowledge of the negotiations said. The companies plan to announce an agreement within a few months, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

Time Warner Cable would rather grow through acquisitions than be bought by billionaire John Malone, and has been eyeing Cablevision, its most coveted target, and No. 3 cable operator Cox Cable, according to three people familiar with Time Warner Cable’s thinking.

The distribution deal between CBS and Time Warner Cable expired at midnight ET on Sunday, and reps for the two sides said negotiations covering the Eye’s O&Os and cable networks continued past the deadline. No blackouts of CBS-owned networks have been reported on Time Warner Cable systems.

Billionaire John Malone is exploring scenarios for how Charter Communications Inc. could acquire Time Warner Cable, even after his initial overtures were rebuffed, according to people familiar with the discussions. Malone’s Liberty Media Corp., which owns 27% of Charter, is working on how to structure an offer with enough cash to win over TWC investors, said the people, who asked not to be named because the deliberations are private. Time Warner Cable isn’t interested in a deal and doesn’t think Liberty and Charter can come up with an offer that’s attractive, according to people familiar with management’s thinking.

WTMJ Milwaukee is among the Journal Broadcast Group stations carried on Time Warner Cable that could remove themselves from the carrier if a contract dispute over retransmission compensation is not settled. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

Wall Street is fired up about consolidation in the cable industry and is betting on Charter Communications chief Tom Rutledge to lead the latest deal-making — potentially a merger involving Cablevision or Time Warner Cable. Although Charter is half the size of Time Warner, the fourth-largest pay TV provider, Wall Street would like to see the two combined under the leadership of Rutledge.

Scripps Networks has a TV Everywhere deal with Time Warner Cable, allowing viewers access to on-demand programming. Content from five networks will be available to the cable operator’s subscribers on an authenticated basis.

Time Warner Cable and other pay-TV operators are offering incentives to media companies that agree to withhold content from Web-based entertainment services such as those pursued by Intel Corp. and Apple Inc., people with knowledge of the matter say. The incentives can take the form of higher payments, or they can include threats to drop programming, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

The anti-bundling bill by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) may be going nowhere, but Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt says he supports the idea of having smaller television packages. Britt told an audience at the Cable Show in Washington that cable TV packages are becoming too expensive for many low-income households, including recent college graduates struggling to find work.

More than 1.5 million Time Warner Cable subscribers in 14 markets can relax. The cable company — which also represents Bright House Network – “has reached an agreement with LIN Media for continued carriage of their broadcast stations,” it said today without details about terms.

A unit formed by Wall Street powerhouse Guggenheim Partners is about to be hit with a $1 billion beanball. The new owners of the L.A. Dodgers are being forced to rework their pending $7 billion, 25-year media rights deal with Time Warner Cable, three sources close to the situation say. The new deal could end up seeing the unit, Guggenheim Baseball Management, fork over $130 million a year to Major League Baseball under its revenue-sharing agreement, these sources say.

The broadcaster has begun to warn more than 1.5 million viewers in 14 markets that its stations could disappear from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Network systems at the end of next week unless the companies reach a new retransmission consent agreement. Stations at risk include LIN TV’s NBC, CW, and MyNetworkTV affiliates in Austin, Texas; CBS and CW stations in Buffalo, N.Y.; NBC and CW outlets in Dayton, Ohio; and Fox and CW stations in Green Bay, Wis.