Now that WTMJ-TV officially has lost the basic-cable channel 4 spot on Time Warner Cable, will the “Today’s TMJ4” brand name go away?
Nope.
Although WTMJ owner Journal Broadcast Group and Time Warner Cable negotiated a new contract on the fee the cable company pays to carry WTMJ-TV programming, the Milwaukee NBC station did not get its cable channel back. Time Warner Cable replaced WTMJ on cable channel 4 with the Game Show Network and that placement will remain.
The cable company’s move with channel 4 bugged Journal Broadcast executives, but they decided to drop the matter for now, executive vice president Steve Wexler told me.
“We could’ve kept debating that — they wanted us to buy it back,” Wexler said. “This (blackout) was a great distraction ultimately for the viewers, so we made the accommodation.”
Time Warner Cable spokesman Mike Pedelty said his company owns the cable channel lineup and has the right to decide which stations run on which channels. Thus channel placement is a matter for negotiation, not an “inherent right.”
Despite losing channel 4 on Time Warner Cable’s basic-service lineup, WTMJ-TV is back on its digital cable channel 1004, Wexler noted. Viewers of other services and free over-the-air TV still relate to WTMJ as channel 4, he said.
“We’re on 4 on AT&T, over the air, Dish and DirecTV,” Wexler told me. “We happen to be on (digital) 1004, which is the majority of Time Warner Cable viewing.”
So viewers will still be able to, as the promos used to say, “Touch Today’s TMJ4.”