Cablevision, Disney Still Struggle Over WABC Programming Fees
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Both broadcast and cable has seen its fair share of battles over viewers, but now Cablevision and ABC Disney see no end in sight in their ongoing conflict over fees. NY1's Diane King filed the following report.Cablevision says it pays ABC Disney more than $200 million dollars a year to carry its programming and claims the company now wants another $40 million for exactly the same channels, including Channel 7. However, WABC says Cablevision has never paid for Channel 7 and that the cable company should start.
If the conflict is unresolved by Sunday morning, Cablevision may stop carrying Channel 7.
"Generally there is a trend. Broadcast television wants money from cable. They don't want to be giving away, they think, their content to the benefit of the cable operators," says Crain's New York media reporter Matt Flam.
Both Cablevision and WABC are barraging its customers with ads saying that their side is on the right.
"Our signal is free over the airwaves, so somebody can get it with an antenna, but once they take it and put it on that broadcast-basic tier, they're charging our customers, our viewers, anywhere between $16 and $18 per month," says Rebecca Campbell, WABC-TV's president and manager.
The battle follows a similar disagreement between NewsCorp and Time Warner Cable, the parent company of NY1, over the cost of carrying Fox stations. That battle concluded without stations going dark.
Cablevision and Scripps also battled over the Food Network and HGTV. The networks were pulled but were put back on.
If Cablevision's latest fight forces stations to go dark, customers may be angered.
"If local viewers can't watch the Academy Awards on Sunday night, there are going to be a lot of very angry people," says Flam. "Who they are angrier at, whether [it will be] WABC or Cablevision, is hard to tell."
ABC Disney's next battle may be with Time Warner Cable, whose contract expires in August.
Time Warner Cable declined to comment about the ongoing battle between Cablevision and ABC Disney. However, in a recent conference call, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said, "We need to reform how these negotiations work. This isn't working for consumers, which means it isn't working for the broader industry."
How the dust settles could have wide-ranging implications for the broadcast industry and consumers.