Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt has been talking with other cable providers about making a joint bid for the Web-TV hub. Hulu has hired Guggenheim Partners to explore a sale, among other options, as owners mull its future. Cable companies would make logical buyers. With consumption of Internet video on the rise, the cable industry is feeling the heat from Web streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon that offer a range of TV shows and movies.

Time Warner Cable joins a growing chorus of companies that are beginning to chip away at long-held business relationships with major broadcast television networks. CEO Glenn Britt: “What Aereo is doing to bring broadcast signals to its customers is interesting. If it is found legal, we could conceivably use similar technology,” he says.

Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable provider, will no longer aggressively push “triple play” packages of Internet, video and voice on its customers, moving away from the long-held industry practice of bundling the services together.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ record $7 billion-plus media-rights deal with Time Warner Cable has hit a major-league snag. Guggenheim Partners and other owners of the team could lose as much as $1 billion of Time Warner Cable’s cash to Major League Baseball’s revenue-sharing plan because of the way the deal is structured, sources said.

Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner Cable since 2001, plans to leave the post when his contract expires at the end of the year according to the Wall Street Journal. Rob Marcus, the company’s president-CEO, is said to be the most likely choice to succeed him. WSJ subscribers can read the story here.

Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Glenn Britt on Thursday told investors that the operator’s regional sports network strategy is designed to minimize costs in the long haul. Speaking on TWC’s fourth quarter earnings call, Britt said the company’s 25-year pact to distribute SportsNet LA, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ new RSN, was a forward-looking deal. “We do not pretend that these deals are inexpensive or cheap, and our sense is that if we’re going to carry these games, they’re going to be expensive when we get them,” Britt said. “So what we think we’ve done with these deals is to minimize and stabilize the cost over a long time period.”

Few cable companies have been as vocal about the rising costs of sports programming as Time Warner Cable. But its executives’ critical words don’t match up with Time Warner Cable’s actions. As of late, few cable companies have been as instrumental in driving up sports costs as Time Warner Cable.

Time Warner Cable Inc. has struck a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers to broadcast the Major League Baseball team’s games, two people familiar with the matter said. An announcement of the agreement is imminent, although no deal has been signed, said the people, who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. The games will be carried on a new regional sports network developed by Guggenheim Partners, which bought the Dodgers for $2.15 billion last year.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are leaning toward moving its television broadcasts from Fox Sports to Time Warner Cable starting in 2014, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it. The Dodgers have not made a final decision, the people said.

The Consumer Electronics Show officially kicked off this morning and already pay TV and content providers have announced some new toys, services and tactics.

Roku today struck its first deals with a U.S. multichannel distributor and broadcast network. Time Warner Cable will make live simulcasts of as many as 300 linear channels to those who subscribe to both its video and data plans in addition to owning Roku boxes. Separately, Fox will make next-day access to episodes of its primetime series available on the streaming device to users who can authenticate their subscriptions with participating pay TV providers.

AMC Networks said Monday that it has temporarily extended a carriage deal with Time Warner Cable as the two sides negotiate a renewal of the contract that expired at midnight on Dec. 31.

Time Warner Cable boss Glenn Britt’s message to low-rated cable networks is simple: You’ll get nothing, and like it. Britt — who is looking to rein in soaring programming costs by culling channels with smaller audiences — has started telling some programmers that they can either go dark or get no fee at all in return for continued distribution on his service.

After negotiating exclusively with Fox Sports on a new TV deal to keep the team on its Prime Ticket network, the Dodgers have taken a meeting with Time Warner Cable, which wants the team on its SportsNet and Deportes channels.

Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt threatened to drop networks with low ratings when their programming contracts expire to combat rising pay-television costs. Distribution on Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable company, “is not a birthright,” Britt said Monday.

DirecTV will launch Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Time Warner Cable Deportes today for all Southern California customers.

Lakers fans are finally getting some good news. Satellite broadcaster DirecTV has struck a deal to carry SportsNet, the Time Warner Cable-owned network that is the new TV home for the Lakers, sources close to the talks say.

Time Warner Cable Inc, the second largest U.S. cable operator, reported a quarterly profit that missed estimates as the company lost more video subscribers than expected, sending its shares down more than 6% today.

Cox Cable has reached an agreement to carry Time Warner Cable’s sports channel SportsNet, which is the new local television home for the Los Angeles Lakers. The agreement ends a standoff between the two companies that had been going on for weeks.

beIN SPORT, the new independent 24-hour global network dedicated to live and exclusive coverage of the world’s best soccer and international sports, today announced it will be carried by Time […]

The first regular season Los Angeles Lakers game scheduled to air on Time Warner Cable’s new SportsNet channel is just a week away and the cable company still does not have any distribution deals with other pay TV providers in the region.

RLTV, a cable network and online destination for adults 50-plus, today signed a long-term distribution agreement for carriage on Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks cable systems. The agreement […]

Time Warner Cable is asking as much as $3.95 per subscriber per month from competitors in the L.A. area, said a person familiar with the situation. The person requested anonymity because the negotiations are confidential and the details were not yet final. That would make it the second most expensive regional sports network in the nation behind Comcast SportsNet Washington, which charges $4.02 per subscriber per month, according to research firm SNL Kagan.

Smith Media’s KEYT, the ABC affiliate for Santa Barbara, Calif., has won an FCC ruling that Time Warner must carry its HD signal on systems where TWC has only been carrying the station’s analog signal.

The National Football League reached agreement with Time Warner (TWC) Cable Inc. to carry the league-owned NFL Network and RedZone Channel, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said. The multiyear accord may be announced later today, according to the people, who were granted anonymity because the contract hasn’t been signed.

Nexstar Broadcasting fails to convince a Texas  judge that its carriage agreement with Time Warner Cable prevents the cable operator from importing its signals into other markets as replacement signals during retrans disputes.

After weeks of quiet but intense negotiations, Time Warner Cable and Fox News have struck a new long-term affiliation agreement. The talks between the two giants remained mostly under the radar and terms weren’t disclosed but sources say Fox will get a $1 per sub increase in the first year, and increases in the following years.

TV station groups should thank Time Warner Cable for the wake-up call. It’s unlikely that station owners will ever again craft a contract without explicit, inarguable language saying their stations cannot be imported into a faraway market.

Time Warner Cable reported Wednesday night that the company has agreed to an extension of retransmission consent for Meredith TV stations through July 31.

The Meredith CBS affiliate in Kansas City warned views on Friday that its contract with the cable company will expire at midnight Wednesday — and that negotiations are not going well.

The group broadcaster and Time Warner Cable come to terms on retransmission consent agreements in 14 markets.

Teh broadcaster and the trade association say the cable MSO is dragging its heels on retransmission consent negotiations on purpose, in hopes that Congress will get involved.

Nexstar sued Time Warner in U.S. District Court, northern district of Texas, alleging copyright infringement and breach of contract for importing its TV stations without permission. Nexstar is seeking a temporary restraining order and other injunctive relief.