Comcast Lands in Sinclair’s Jungle
By Linda Moss & Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 1/8/2007 6:13:00 PM EST
Comcast subscribers became the latest TV viewers to face the prospect of losing feeds of CBS, NBC and Fox stations supplied by Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Under the gun, Comcast Friday began notifying a small number of subscribers that they could lose access to analog feeds of Sinclair stations within 30 days. At issue: paying cash to Sinclair in order to retransmit signals of its stations’ broadcasts.
"Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the nation’s largest broadcast-television-station owners, has demanded large cash payments from Comcast and, ultimately, consumers so that these customers can continue to view broadcast-television stations that are available over-the-air for free,” Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said in a prepared statement.
Sinclair VP and general counsel Barry Faber said, “We’ve barely begun negotiations with Comcast,” and it was too early to declare that the two companies were involved in a dispute.
Even so, Comcast became the third MSO to balk at paying cash to Sinclair for carriage of its stations.
About 700,000 subscribers belonging to Mediacom Communications, based in Middletown, N.Y., lost access to Sinclair signals at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-largest MSO, is also facing the prospect of losing access to Sinclair signals, but on New Year’s Eve, it worked out an extension of its current retransmission deal through Friday, Jan. 12.
Sinclair and Time Warner agreed to extend their expiring contract so that they could continue to work out terms regarding stations in markets where the cable company purchased systems last year from now-defunct Adelphia Communications.
That negotiation involves systems with roughly 1 million subscribers, concentrated in New York in towns such as Buffalo and Syracuse, as well as in Ohio and Maine.
In the case of Comcast, about 3 million subscribers could lose their Sinclair signals March 1 if the two companies have not resolved their differences. The markets involved include Pittsburgh; Baltimore; Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Richmond, Va.; and Tampa, Fla.
Under Federal Communications Commission rules, Comcast can’t drop Sinclair’s stations in February, when viewership is measured for the purpose of determining advertising rates. Comcast subscribers who are considered out-of-market are not covered by the FCC prohibition, however, causing Comcast to initiate the notification process last Friday.
“We are currently negotiating with Sinclair to reach a fair agreement, but are not legally allowed to carry these channels without Sinclair’s permission. We will do everything in our power to avoid service interruptions without adding Sinclair’s proposed fees to customers’ bills,” Cohen said.
Faber said Sinclair has been working to finalize its deal with Time Warner, “so Comcast hasn’t quite risen on my radar screen yet.”
The country’s largest cable company said it is refusing to pay Sinclair cash in exchange for a carriage agreement. Under federal law, TV stations may demand cash for carriage but cable operators are not required to agree. Both, however, must bargain in good faith.
In the three disputes, Sinclair could be hit hardest by not coming to terms with Comcast. According to one party knowledgeable about the negotiations, the Sinclair stations involved in the Comcast pact represent about one-third of the broadcaster’s revenue.
Mediacom Asks FCC For Retrans Help
10/25/2009Seeking Retransmission Help
11/01/2009Comcast in Sinclair's Jungle
01/07/2007Retrans Feuds Ease Up
06/22/2009Another Extension for Comcast, Sinclair
03/01/2007
