A disagreement over the costs to carry ABC affiliate WMUR’s signal on a North Country cable system has left residents there without a New Hampshire-based TV newscast.
Time Warner Cable pulled the plug on WMUR at midnight on June 30 when the three-year agreement ended. At the heart of the dispute is the cost of carrying programing. Last week, an impasse in negotiations between Hearst Television and Time Warner led to the blacking out of Portland-based WMTW’s channel on the cable carrier.
“In the past, we have agreed with Hearst TV to carry their stations on our cable systems. This year they have asked for rate increases that are out of line — 300 percent for the same programming they continue to deliver for free over the air and some online. We think that’s unfair,” Andrew Russell, Time Warner spokesman in Portland, Maine, wrote in an e-mail response to a reporter’s inquiry.
He added: “One cause of higher cable TV prices is higher fees being demanded by greedy broadcasters. As their advertising dollars decline, they want cable customers to make up the difference. And, if we don’t agree to their outrageous demands, they take away their programming.”
WMUR categorized the 300 percent increase as a misrepresentation.
“We didn’t have any expectation it’d end this way after 150 other negotiations,” Alex Jasiukowicz, WMUR’s creative services director, said of Hearst TV’s carriage contracts.
“If you add up the sum total costs to provide programming, it is what it is,” Jasiukowicz said.
He said that negotiations are ongoing, and the hope is there will be a resolution soon.
Alternative viewing options, Jasiukowicz said, include some broadcasts that are now streamed online at wmur.com and the station’s signal broadcast over the air, which can be picked up with conventional antennas or via satellite dish providers (DISH and DirecTV).
Pat McClean of Lancaster said Time Warner Cable has replaced the missing ABC signal with the Hallmark Channel.
“We get Hallmark on another station already and don’t need it twice,” McLean said Monday. “My husband called Time Warner and the call got shunted to Buffalo and that’s not doing us a lot of good with what’s happening locally,” she said.
Pulling the ABC affiliate left McLean and others with no news offerings with New Hampshire ties. “We get TV news out of Maine and Burlington, Vt., and two stations from Montreal, but we don’t speak French and they don’t cover New Hampshire,” McLean said. “None of those stations is reporting and covering what is happening up here.”
John Arruda, a Madison selectman, said he has sent letters to the cable company and the broadcast company, and that all he has gotten back are form letters.
Having a statewide station with the capacity to notify the public quickly about dangerous weather conditions is a safety issue, he said. The recent microburst in Tilton is a case in point, he said.
Peter Joseph, Lincoln town manager, said that for seniors and low-income residents, basic cable is almost essential.
“That’s the cheapest option to get TV,” he said. “Even today, not everyone uses internet.”
Russell said customers can find out more about Hearst’s blackout via its website.
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent Sara Young-Knox contributed to this report.
(c)2012 The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.)
Distributed by MCT Information Services
I haven’t had cable in 7 years (nor ever had satellite) and I don’t miss it. I might consider coming back if some provider were to offer an a la carte system where I only get to order/pay for the stations I want and not the ones I don’t want.
I have never had cable or satellite. We bought a $200+roof antenna from Radio Shack many years ago and it has paid for itself over and over again, with no monthly fee. We get 7 channels, which is 6 more than I can watch at any given time.
People need to realize they’ve been sold a bill of goods and been made to feel that 50-100 stations and a monthly bill are all necessities. Not true. They are expensive, aggravating wants.
I asked my cable provider (RCN) about a la carte because 15 sport, 2 Vietnamese, 14 Spanish channels etc don’t interest me. Nope! The other providers available to me (Verizon, Comcast etc) won’t do it either. I would shut off cable today, but I like the fiber optic internet connection too much….
My solution is the same as mainegal17’s. I dropped cable when I moved to my current location and put up an antenna.
Good for you. I had an ant (rotor and all)when I lived in The County. Got New Brunswick and Presque Isle. Once in awhile, Bangor. Direct stopped working in every rain shower….
In Boston, I haven’t done dialup for at least 10 years. :)
Olympia Snowe should join with Susan Collins for WMTW, her New
Hampshire friends Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte for WMUR, and her
Masssachusetts friends John Kerry and Scott Brown for WCVB all there to
help put an end to the Hearst Time Warner Cable dispute.
Snowe, Collins, Shaheen, Ayotte, Kerry, Brown:
Here is my own opinions and my own theories to the cause of the dispute between Hearst and Time Warner Cable:
For the Hearst Time Warner Cable dispute:
Every Time Warner Cable customer should be ashamed of both David J.
Barrett and Hearst for this blackout that result in the viewers from
being able to watch their favorite shows with Time Warner Cable. I feel
that David J. Barrett and Hearst are trying to be like the Neil Bogarts
of Casablanca Records fame of the 1970’s disco era, the Trinity
Broadcasting Network’s, the David Smith (one of the Smith brothers from
Sinclair Broadcast Group), the Harry Pappas as part of the Pappas
Telecasting Companies, the Bernard Madoff’s, the Enron’s, the
Worldcom’s, the Adelphia’s, the Tyco’s, and the Martha Stewart’s, of the
2000’s by letting broadcast greed get out of control so all of the head
employees and bosses at Hearst to be able to enjoy carefree lavishly
spending to support carefree lavishly lifestyles with luxurious homes,
luxurious jets, luxurious cars, join luxurious clubs, and have other
luxurious items just to make them very happy then trying and willingness
to improve the quality of all the stations they owned and control and
making the viewers happy as well. I hope and I wish that David J.
Barrett and Hearst get scolded by both by the ACA and the FCC for making
the viewers being forced to deal with this blackout because they could
not make a deal to get the stations back to it’s customers sooner and
with a fair deal with Time Warner Cable. I hope and I wish that David J.
Barrett and Hearst is barred from buying and owning anymore TV stations
in the future after their final decision to remove the stations from
Time Warner Cable. I feel that David J. Barrett and Hearst are trying to
bribe like the General Tire/RKO General of the 1960’s and 1970’s by not
being very honest of not only the viewers by making them miss the shows
on Time Warner Cable and also on themselves. I hope and I wish that the
FCC would force David J. Barrett and Hearst to allow Time Warner Cable
to carry it’s stations without any interference before the olympics and
football season starts, in the event David J. Barrett and Hearst fails
to allow Time Warner Cable to carry it’s stations again, then the FCC
would force David J. Barrett and Hearst to allow Time Warner Cable to
import out of market stations that are very real close to the station
being blacked out being affiliated with the same network, in the event
David J. Barrett and Hearst fails to allow Time Warner Cable to import
out of market stations that are very real close to the station being
blacked out being affiliated with the same network, then the FCC would
allow Time Warner Cable to carry the out of market station with the same
affiliation without any restrictions and also be allowed to continue to
carry the out of market station that it’s digital television signal is
reachable by a outdoor antenna including both it’s SD and HD feeds on
the cable system even after the dispute is over without any interference
for 12 whole years to meet FCC rules and regulators. I feel that both
David J. Barrett and Hearst are way too busy being the Rebecca Black
Friday, Double Take Hot Problems and Guns N Roses Axl Rose as well
as trying be act like the Lyle and Erik Menendez’s as the greedy
murderers, the Jeffrey Ireland’s and the Patrick Jones’s as the drunks,
the Rodney Dangerfield’s, the John Belushi’s, and the Chris Farley’s as
the comedians, the John Robert Ewing’s and the Cliff Barnes’s, the
Charles Montgomery Burn’s, the Homer and Bart Simpson’s, the Peter
Griffin’s, the Garfield cats, the Cookie Monster’s, the Miss Piggy’s,
the Victor Newman’s of the broadcasting industry of not coming to reach a
deal with Time Warner Cable to carry it’s stations to the viewers
everyday. I feel that both David J. Barrett and Hearst are trying to
turn into the 1919 Chicago White Sox’s baseball team and the Southern
Methodist University football of the 1980’s to force Time Warner Cable
to accept a take it or leave it deal to carry it’s stations. I urge all
of the viewers with Time Warner Cable to boycott both David J. Barrett
and Hearst right now for making the Time Warner Cable viewers suffer
from being able to watch their favorite shows. Olympia Snowe and
your colleagues in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts could read
my post and blog on the Hearst Time Warner Cable dispute.
Thank you for my understanding to this matter.