UPDATE, 7:30PM Wednesday: Time Warner Cable reported tonight the company has agreed to an extension of retransmission consent for Meredith TV stations through July 31. TWC said the two companies “hope to finalize an agreement before that time. We thank our customers for their patience.”
PREVIOUSLY, 7:50 AM Los Angeles time July 23: On Wednesday the cable company could lose the CBS and MyNetworkTV affiliates in Kansas City, an NBC station in Nashville, and a CBS outlet in Springfield, Mass. if the companies don’t resolve their contract dispute. The script will be familiar to anyone who has followed these retransmission consent fights, including the one that Time Warner Cable resolved last week with Hearst Television. The No. 2 cable operator says that the broadcaster wants “a price increase of over 200%, for programming that they deliver for free over the air and via the internet.” But Meredith’s KCTV in Kansas City is telling viewers that “Time Warner Cable profits by including broadcast stations like KCTV5 and KSMO in its line-up. We are asking Time Warner Cable for pennies a day. Like any other business, Time Warner Cable should pay fair market value for the ability to resell our programming for you.” Meredith seems to to have more to lose than TWC does in this showdown: Meredith shares are down 3.2% in early trading Monday, a steeper drop than the overall market. Time Warner Cable’s down 1.3%.
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