retrans talks
Will LIN Stations Go Dark On TWC Systems?
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.
This article was originally posted on deadline.com
Most of LIN’s stations are tops in these markets and I am sure they deserve the increase which I assume is likely 25% of what Time Warner pays ESPN which is not watched by 75% of any particular market.
Accumulative Viewership at seventy five percent for ESPN for a year including restaurants and bars, sounds about right.
ESPN is the problem with re-trans… broadcasters have a legitimate gripe about low rates compared to cable systems that are rarely watched and ESPN’s greedy demands that will soon approach $10/sub.
I would rather see LIN Media and LIN Television used the money from the increase of retransmission fees to buy up various station from Local TV LLC and Allbritton. LIN could buy WSET and WCIV from Allbritton and KDVR and turned into a CW station with KWGN getting FOX, WDAF, KTVI and turned into a ABC station with KPLR getting FOX and KDNL getting CW, WITI with the option of also acquiring WIWN from Pappas if they would want to fully sale the station in the future, WJW, WHNT, and WGHP and turned into a ABC station with WXLV getting FOX from Local TV LLC while Meredith could buy KWGN and KPLR if Tribune would ever sale various stations to help pay off it’s debt from their 2008 bankruptcy.
The affected TV viewers with Time Warner Cable could try the DTV Green dish antenna system to pick up the affected stations that are owned and maintained by Vincent Sadusky and LIN Media and LIN Television:
http://www.dtvgreendish.com/