Carriage Deals

Turner Broadcasting System, said Thursday it has reached a long-term carriage agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative, the purchasing group for small and medium-sized cable operators. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Under the terms of the agreement, Turner’s diverse portfolio of networks including CNN, HLN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), truTV, CNN International, CNN en Español and Boomerang will continue to be carried by NCTC’s nearly 1,000 independent cable operator members nationwide.

The worst kept secret in television – News Corp.’s plans to launch a national rival to sports juggernaut ESPN –  could be a “cornerstone” network for the media giant, generating billions of dollars of revenue in the next three-to-five years, News’ chief operating officer Chase Carey said at an industry conference today.

Cablevision Systems, the ninth-largest pay TV distributor in the U.S., took aim at programmers’ longstanding practice of bundling less-popular channels with those that consumers really want to watch, suing content king Viacom in federal court last week.

Cord-cutting rage may not have inflicted a deep wound on the industry yet. But millions of Americans say they are considering pulling the plug on pay TV, with many citing price increases as the splinter of their discontent.

Only 0.8% of subscribers surveyed said they canceled their cable or satellite-TV service in the last 12 months, according to a survey commissioned by video search and discovery vendor Digitalsmiths.

Cablevision Systems CEO James Dolan tried to briefly explain the MSO’s recent lawsuit against Viacom, on  a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter results, noting that the programming giant is “abusing its market power,” by forcing retailers to accept channels they don’t want.

Cablevision sued Viacom in federal court earlier this week, asking the court to halt the practice of wholesale bundling of channels.