More than 300,000 Time Warner Cable subscribers are now without KXAN-TV, Austin’s local NBC affiliate, due to a retransmission contract dispute between the two companies.
Time Warner “benefits financially” from cable subscribers to broadcast local stations like KXAN without compensating the station in return, according to a KXAN statement.
KXAN, one of 15 local stations across the country owned by parent company LIN TV that was supported by Time Warner, asked Time Warner to pay them “less than a penny a day per subscriber” for Time Warner to resell the station’s programming to subscribers. Negotiations between the companies have been ongoing since July.
LIN reached “carriage agreements with every major cable, telecommunications and satellite operator” that carries their stations, including AT&T, DISH, Suddenlink, DirecTV and Grande Communications, according to a statement. Time Warner was the only exception.
Stacy Schmitt, Time Warner’s vice president of public affairs, said government-provided broadcast programming should be free to everyone. She said that KXAN’s request for compensation is because “the broadcast revenue model,” which is based on advertising, is falling and KXAN is looking for other ways to increase revenue.
“Its millions of dollars that they want us to pay, and we do not want to do that,” Schmitt said.
KXAN did not return phone calls made by The Daily Texan.
Accounting junior Sarah Haisten was one of the 300,000 Time Warner subscribers affected by the conflict. Haisten’s favorite shows include “The Office” and “30 Rock,” both NBC shows that she now has to watch online.
“Viewers are really getting the bad end of this deal,” Haisten said. “Two corporations are fighting, and customers can’t really do anything about it.”
Most episodes of NBC shows can be viewed on the network Web site, but live programs such as Sunday Night Football and “Saturday Night Live” do not receive full coverage. “I think by downloading and using YouTube, we can watch what we want to watch,”
Haisten said. “We live in a society where it’s so easy to watch things illegally that it’s sometimes harder to watch it legally.”
Associate journalism professor George Sylvie said the station was “in their right” to ask for money.
“It’s a good business decision to ask,” Sylvie said. “They can’t serve the consumer without making the money.”
Sylvie also said that both companies are pressured by consumers to get their act together. He said he thinks the conflict will last less than two months because both KXAN and Time Warner will lose subscribers who are missing too much, including the buzz surrounding the presidential race.
“It’s a PR war being waged to determine which side could pressure the other side to give in,” Sylvie said. “And both are skilled in playing the game.”
