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Michael Hiltzik: Time Warner wrings, and it’s for you

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Time Warner Cable’s launched its ‘Roll Over or Get Tough’ campaign just before Thanksgiving, hoping to stake out the high ground early in what is likely to be a bruising round of negotiations with programming providers.

As my Thursday column explains, the idea is to enlist the sympathy of its subscribers as it prepares to play hardball with Fox, NBC, ABC and other networks and programming sources. In 1992, cable operators for ‘retransmission’ permission. In practice these deals were made on a quid pro quo basis -- Time Warner or Comcast gets ABC programming, but it has to provide prominent space on its system for the Toon Disney channel in return, for example.

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But now the programmers are asking for cash. Time Warner Cable Inc.’s invitation to subscribers to vote on whether it should give the programmers what they want or hold the line is designed to be about as honest and fair as a Third World presidential election, but that probably won’t keep the cable company from shouting from the rooftops that its subscribers want it to hang tough on fee demands. The question is: If it can’t reach a deal with, say, Fox, who will subscribers blame if the impasse results in a blackout of their Sunday NFL games?

The column begins below:

The quality of programming being what it is, I was listening to my TV with half an ear a few nights ago, most of my attention being devoted to a self-improvement book, when thought I heard a voice from the screen say that Time Warner Cable needed my help. In my shock, the book — ‘Donald Trump’s Management Tips for Dummies,’ if recollection serves — fell from my grasp. Yet it was true: Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-biggest cable system, desired my support in its long-running fight with content providers such as Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC. The programmers, it seems, want to jack up the fees they charge Time Warner and its fellows to beam their content through my cable box.’Price increases,’ Time Warner lamented on its website. ‘Big ones. Up to 300% more. Sometimes we can avoid passing them on to you. Sometimes we can’t.’ (Translation: ‘We pass them on to you.’)Read the whole column.

-- Michael Hiltzik

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