Some Carriage Talks Continue Amid Few Blackouts, but Most Disputes Were Resolved
Few carriage and retransmission consent disputes spilled into 2012. A handful of negotiations between broadcasters and pay-TV distributors remained unresolved early this week, while one high-profile dispute between Time Warner Cable and Madison Square Garden Network continued on the cable programming side. “Virtually every broadcast/pay-TV carriage deal appears to have been negotiated to a successful conclusion, with little fanfare,” an NAB spokesman said, saying the lack of widespread problems proved “that retransmission consent is a free and fair market process that does not need government assistance.”
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But some companies weren’t able to reach deals before they expired Dec. 31. Shentel said its subscribers in Shenandoah County and Petersburg, Va., were not able to see Allbritton’s WJLA-TV Washington after Jan. 1. In a message to customers, Shentel said: “We apologize for any inconvenience or service interruptions these negotiations may cause. … We are working hard to keep your bill for television programming affordable.” The dispute affects about 8,200 subscribers on the outskirts of the Washington market, said Jerry Fritz, Allbritton senior vice president-legal and strategic affairs. “As is typical in these contentious retrans negotiations, they come down to the last minute and this was no exception,” he said. “We had multiple deals that came together in the last few days of the year. We still have one to do.”
Dish Network was unable to reach retransmission consent deals with stations in three smaller markets, according to a list of disputes compiled by the American TV Alliance, a group pushing to change retransmission consent rules. A spokesman for the alliance said there were nearly 40 markets affected by retransmission consent blackouts in 2011.
Dish stopped carrying stations owned by Wyomedia, Silverton Broadcasting and Mark II Media, representing five stations in Casper and Cheyenne, Wyo., on Jan. 1, a spokesman said. In the Columbus/Toledo, Ohio, market Dish stopped carrying some stations for about 24 hours but service has since been restored and agreements are in place. And in Ft. Myers, Fla., and Charlottesville, Va.,, Dish reached agreements with stations owned by Waterman Broadcasting and Montclair Communications with no service interruptions, a spokesman said.
The NAB pointed to other deals reached without service interruptions, including Young Broadcasting’s 10 TV stations with its distributors including Dish, News Press-Gazette deals with AT&T, Cablevision and Bend Broadband. Moreover, Allbritton’s WJLA-TV successfully concluded carriage talks with Cox in Fairfax County, Va. A dispute in Corpus Christi, Texas, between Cordillera and Time Warner Cable (CD Dec 16 p8) remained unresolved.