WABC-TV Pulls Signal From Cablevision In Retrans Dispute

http://www.multichannel.com/article/print/449770-WABC_TV_Pulls_Signal_From_Cablevision_In_Retrans_Dispute.php

WABC-TV Pulls Signal From Cablevision In Retrans Dispute
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, March 7, 2010

It looks like Cablevision video customers are going to have a find a different way to watch the Oscars Sunday night.
WABC-TV, which on March 1 threatened to pull its signal from Cablevision in a retransmission-consent dispute, did send the station to black at 12:01 a.m. on March 7, as the parties apparently could not come to terms. The 82nd annual Academy Awards telecast is scheduled to run on the ABC network at 8:30 p.m.

"It is now painfully clear to millions of New York area households that Disney CEO Bob Iger will hold his own ABC viewers hostage in order to extract $40 million in new fees from Cablevision," said Cablevision executive vice president Charles Schueler in a statment. "We call on Bob Iger to immediately return ABC to Cablevision customers while we continue to work to reach a fair agreement."
For her part, Rebecca Campbell, president and general manager, WABC-TV, issued the following statement, after midnight on Sunday morning.

"Cablevision has once again betrayed its subscribers by losing ABC7, the most popular station in the tri-state area. This follows two years of negotiations, during which we worked diligently, up to the final moments, to reach an agreement," Campbell said. "Cablevision pocketed almost $8 billion last year, and now customers aren't getting what they pay for...again. It's time for Jim Dolan and the Dolan Family Dynasty to finally step up, be fair, and do what's right for our viewers."

WABC-TV said Cablevision customers can call 1-877-990-ABC7 or visit www.saveABC7.com for information on how to switch service providers or receive ABC7's signal free, over-the-air

At the same time, Cablevision said its customers should urge ABC Disney to put the WABC programming back on Cablevision by calling 1-877-NO-TV-TAX, visiting http://www.cablevision.com/abc or joining its Facebook group "Cablevision Viewers Say: No New Fees, ABC!"

Cablevision, the predominant cable operator in metro New York with some 3.1 million video subscribers, claims that WABC-TV has been seeking some $40 million annually for its signal, a monthly license fee of about $1 per subscriber. The cable operator said it already pays WABC-TV parent The Walt Disney Co. some $200 million annually for carriage of such cable networks as ESPN and Disney Channel, and forking over fees for an over-the-air station would constitute a TV tax.

Disney has not disclosed its asking price, but some sources peg in the 50 cents to 60cents range. Whatever the amount, the parties could not bridge their differences and the station is now off Cablevision's air.

WABC-TV said it had been negotiating for retransmission-consent compensation for two years, continually granting contract extensions, with the talks heating up of late.

Cablevision CEO James Dolan, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom conference in San Francisco on March 2, said Disney had resorted to a "bullying" move and Disney only started negotiating in earnest over the past few weeks, not the longer span the programmer mentioned.

Dolan noted that he and Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge traveled to Los Angeles last week to meet with Disney executives.

The decision follows a week's worth of finger-pointing in print and TV ads, as well as sniping by Cablevision and Disney, littered by comments about greed and ultimately attacks against the leadership of both companies.

Politicians also weighed in on the fracas, with Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, advising the Federal Communications Commission to let the marketplace negotiations were best left to the marketplace.

Conversely, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) advised the FCC that the government needs to step in to protect consumers and fix what he has long characterized as a broken promise.

This is the second high-profile carriage dispute Cablevision has been involved in this year. In January, Scripps Networks Interactive pulled its HGTV and Food Network cable channels from Cablevision for about three weeks.