Much has been said about the heated retransmission negotiations between LIN Television Corporation (and their local Green Bay FOX affiliate WLUK) and Time Warner Cable, the area's dominant cable operator. After signing new deals recently with AT&T, DirecTV and DISH Network, and renewing a carriage deal with Charter, Time Warner found themselves in the position of being the area's last major pay TV provider to undergo negotiations with LIN this year.
The negotiations have not gone well, as evidenced by LIN's refusal to grant a temporary extension of the October 2nd deadline, and Time Warner's subsequent removal of WLUK from its lineup.
Over the past couple weeks since announcing the upcoming contract expiration, WLUK has taken steps to educate their viewers of their position in the matter, dedicating commercial airtime and publishing website articles. WLUK also ran feature stories during their newscasts, but many viewers feel Time Warner wasn't given equal time to state their side of the story.
Like Charter Communications before them, Time Warner had been largely quiet on the matter until this week, when radio and TV advertisements, customer e-mails, billboards and other communications started getting their arguments into the public. However, aside from trading soundbites in the newspaper, I found it hard to do a direct comparison of the views of each side of this dispute.
That's why I feel it's important to bring you -- the Northeast Wisconsin television-viewing public -- a balanced examination of both sides of these heated public negotiations. As LIN, WLUK and its vice-president/GM Jay Zollar have made their positions clear and publicly available on WLUK's website, I offered Time Warner Cable the opportunity to directly respond to WLUK's assertions. I forwarded several points, copied directly from WLUK's website, to Jeff Simmermon, Director of Digital Communications for Time Warner Cable, and both sides are presented below.
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Time Warner charges you a fee to provide WLUK-TV 11. In essence, it takes our signal for free and resells it for a profit. |
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We take WLUK’s signal and amplify it, clarify it, and send it much further than over-the-air signals go. Apart from the access to specialty programming, one of the most compelling reasons to pay for cable is to have a crisp, clear, reliable signal. Remember the days when you had to watch half of the A-Team while somebody in the house fiddled with the rabbit ears? Providing high quality at great convenience isn’t easy and it costs money. Furthermore, our expanded, enhanced signal boosts the size of WLUK’s target audience in the eyes of potential advertisers. More audience means more money for LIN TV -- should we pay for the privilege of boosting someone else’s income? |
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The fair compensation we are asking for as part of our contract negotiations with Time Warner amounts to less than a penny a day per subscriber. Cable companies often say that local broadcasters have "unreasonable demands" when it comes to carriage agreements. We do not believe that a penny a day per subscriber is an unreasonable demand for our award-winning news, sports and entertainment programming. It is actually much less than what cable companies compensate many of its cable networks, none of which have the viewing of your local FOX station. |
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If this is such a piddly little sum of money, why are LIN TV stations threatening to go dark? They’ll be sacrificing a lot of ad revenue and relationships with advertisers over what they claim is essentially the cost of a few bean burritos. Make no mistake: we are not talking about the change that hides in the couch cushions here. And look: if this starts now, it’s going to accelerate. Say you paid a penny per day per channel on cable, with 100 available channels. That’s a dollar per day, $360 per year. We’re managing programming costs now to stop this kind of thing from happening much more dramatically later. Sure, we pay cable networks a lot of money, but that’s their business model. It’s different than a broadcast network’s business model, which is built on advertising income sold over a free signal. Half a truckload of money is still a whole lot of money, and we’re trying to manage programming costs the best we can. |
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If Time Warner provided our signal to you for free, we would not be asking for payment. |
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This is coming from a company that is using all of its television stations and corresponding Web properties to scare their viewership with one-sided yellow journalism as a “negotiation tactic.” Something tells me that they’re taking the high road here out of convenience rather than principle. |
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We only want the same treatment as the cable networks, so that we can compete on equal footing and provide both high quality local news and premium sports and entertainment programming. Without our fair share of subscriber fees, our news and program quality will suffer and we will not be able to compete with the cable networks. |
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Cable networks don’t broadcast their signal for free over the air, thereby diluting the value of their product. And the last time I checked, I couldn’t watch my favorite cable shows on Hulu and network Web sites for free either. This is Bizarro-world economics, the opposite of supply-and-demand. Broadcast programming was free for 60 years, and now we’re being asked to pay millions of dollars for it. If LIN TV wants the same treatment as a cable network, they should adopt the same business model and stop giving their programs away. |
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-- Under Federal Law, Time Warner cannot carry WLUK-TV 11 without an agreement. |
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We’re not the ones depriving anyone of anything. We’re not responsible for pulling that signal. Any decision to drop WLUK will be made by LIN TV and WLUK. |
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WLUK-TV 11 does transmit our programming over the airwaves and customers can get our signals for free via an antenna. That does not mean, however, that Time Warner Cable, one of the largest cable companies in the United States, has the right to take our signal for free and resell it to you for a profit. Here is a basic analogy: If you were to get a drink of water at a public drinking fountain, it is free, but once the water is placed in a package, it is no longer free. The same holds true for local television programming delivered through a subscription-based provider. |
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This might be the one place where WLUK/LIN TV agrees with us. It’s completely free to drink all you want from a public water fountain, but this is a bottled-water world. We take that warm, coppery-tasting water and filter it, purify it and bottle it so you can have cold, clean, pure water in your hand whenever you like without having to take a bucket down to the water fountain every time someone in your family gets thirsty. |
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It is untruthful for Time Warner Cable to blame WLUK-TV 11 for rising cable rates! Time Warner Cable already charges you for local stations. They do not have to raise rates. |
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Our rates reflect operations costs, regulatory fees, programming costs and more. We don’t control the price of the gas we put in our trucks, the price of the copper in our cables, taxes in general or the rents we pay on our offices. We do, however, manage programming costs wherever we can by not paying for free signals. Sports and broadcast programming costs are the largest contributor to rate increases, and we’re doing what we can to keep the rate increases reasonable. |
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We have reached agreements with every major cable company, except for Time Warner Cable. LIN TV has reached carriage agreements with every major cable, telecommunications, and satellite operator that carries our stations, including providers in Green Bay such as Comcast, DISH, DirecTV, AT&T, and Charter Communications. We know from those agreements that what we are asking for is very reasonable. |
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Actually, we’ve been able to successfully negotiate contracts with every other television station in our footprint. If you apply the same rationale, it’s LIN TV that’s being unreasonable here. |
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Cable is no longer a monopoly. You now have choices! |
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Sure, you have choices. And the primary factor that influences the decision to switch providers is cost, every time. If every network service collapses on programming costs every time, things are going to get expensive really fast. Let’s be clear: the money we pay LIN is going to be passed onto our customers. DISH Network and all the other providers are doing the same thing. We’d like to avoid passing on as many costs as we can. Ultimately, LIN TV sells advertising. It’s not a subscription-based business. Broadcast advertising sales are tanking now for any number of reasons, and LIN is demanding an unprecedented sum of money from us to prop up a sagging business plan. |
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the positions taken by both sides of these negotiations, and that you'll better be able to form your own opinions. Whoever you support, let's all hope this comes to a quick and mutually beneficial end.
--Mark David Zahn
Chief Editor, Fox Cities TV
Fox Cities TV is an independent blog and member-driven community based in Green Bay, Wisconsin and serves the Northeast Wisconsin area, including Green Bay, Appleton, and Oshkosh. TV lovers can come here to learn about what's happening in local (and national) television, interact with other TV viewers and express their opinions.
What he says in response
What he says in response makes a lot of sense. If I were to get the analog WLUK in Appleton, with rabbit ears, it would be fuzzy. The HD signal is clear, however. But I could get WLUK clear on all TVs hooked up to the cable. All the way out to Oshkosh.
This is probably the best
This is probably the best article I have read in regards to the whole TW and Lin TV/WLUK mess going on. How does Lin TV/WLUK and TW's contracts compare to other local TV station providers like WBAY, WFRV, etc. Does TW pay them to rebroadcast their signal?
From what I've been told on
From what I've been told on the TWC side, none of the other stations are charging for retransmission. (Yet...)
Your article header is "A
Your article header is "A Balanced Examination of the WLUK - Time Warner Debate".
Not so. You give TWC a opportunity to response to WLUK's claims and no opportunity for WLUK to response to TWC accusations. You obviously have no idea what balanced means. Sounds like someone may be lining your pockets :-(
Hey, do I wish someone was
Hey, do I wish someone was lining my pockets. Maybe then I could have afforded to keep my cable. They increased my bill unexpectedly by $20 per month one month so I cancelled, and I didn't even get offered to keep it by lowering my bill. This site is a hobby for me, and I don't make all that much outside of this. If you're asserting that they're lining my pockets by the ads that may appear on the site, that is entirely handled by Google and I have no say what gets placed there. Even if I did, it's no goldmine. It's merely there to help defray costs of hosting and maintaining this site.
So if someone wants to line my pockets... please send 'em my way. I beg you. It'd be nice not to have to get by paycheck to paycheck. So, yes, I appreciate have accusations being played fast and loose in my direction.
That said...
I gave TWC an opportunity to directly comment on the claims LIN TV made across all its stations' website. In the Charter negotiations, and for years prior on its own "HD FAQ" (which, incidentally, is still viewable online if you look), their assertions against cable (and satellite, back in the day) have been more or less the same. Would I give them a chance to add to this piece? Of course I would! And if anyone over there is reading this (and I know you do), email me (mark@foxcitiestv.com) and I'll be more than happy to add an addendum to the article. Realistically, though, what more do you think they would add? I give you the links to their articles on their own website at the top of the front page of this site. I invite you to go there and read all of them. After you do, how much more do you think can be said on their part that isn't already well-documented?
While we're on the subject, do you believe it's balanced to do stories on the situation during its newscast and give Mr. Zollar time to directly address viewers without giving a Time Warner official equal time to refute those arguments? I'm all for them using commercial time or their websites to make their case, but it seems pretty unfair (personally) to only give one side of the story.
It was obvious to me early
It was obvious to me early on in this thing that LIN TV and WLUK were not negotiating in good faith and, in fact, were attempting to cause damage to TW. I hope TW hangs tough and refuses to carry WLUK even if they give up this extortion attempt. Goodbye WLUK and good riddence.
Are there reasons why Time
Are there reasons why Time Warner could not broadcast the Milwaukee Fox station in northeastern Wisconsin? Seems to me that if they could do that it would be the best solution. It's not like we need Fox 11's newscasts.
They have stated they aren't
They have stated they aren't legally able to do so. More than likely if they could, they would have to black out FOX network programming, similar to when TWC had WVTV, the WB/CW affiliate in Milwaukee a couple years ago.
It would be great if someone
It would be great if someone could explain why TWC can't legally carry FOX6 Milwaukee. At least in Oshkosh, we have Milwaukee's WTMJ (NBC) and WISN (ABC) carried full-time with no blackouts. Programming on WVTV was never blacked out here, either. I believe that Oshkosh is far enough away from Green Bay that programming doesn't have to be blacked out. This doesn't help the folks in Appleton or Green Bay, but at least part of TWC's coverage area would have a FOX replacement and customers would be happier. I suppose the answer is that FOX6 would want payment, too, for carriage.
All TWC has to do to win the
All TWC has to do to win the PR war here is is tell the whole world that they pay NOTHING for any of the other local stations. Nothing, zero, nada. Is WLUK that much better than all the other stations??
If TWC gives in and pays for WLUK, then guess what will happen the next time any of the other stations' agreements are up for renegotiation? They will all ask for money as well...and TWC will have to agree to it. And before you know it, our cable bills will continue to go up up up.
Local TV has always been supported by advertising. If you need more money, LIN -- then raise your ad rates. Hang tough, TWC...it's too bad your pay-TV bretheren (Charter, DirecTV, Dish, AT&T) apparently left you as the only one left to stop this madness.
I would be curious to know
I would be curious to know what those other providers ended up paying out. I don't know, and I'm certain they'd never disclose. I would guess DISH may have gotten away with less, considering the marketing agreement that became part of the deal.
Turned the TV on at about 3
Turned the TV on at about 3 a.m. Apparently it's sort of a trial of Starz: Kids & Family.
I understand that WLUK 11
I understand that WLUK 11 tried to take an unbiased view but there was pressure from management to provide the editorial they felt they needed... TWC's billboards seem to say it all.... "WLUK, Fair and Unbiased?"
I think it should be noted
I think it should be noted that Time Warner, in good faith, is or has been giving out free antennas so that persons can get WLUK. Has WLUK offered anything?
I agree. Thanks to Time
I agree. Thanks to Time Warner for helping out WLUK viewers. If WLUK cared, they'd be handing out signal amplifiers for people that can't pull in their weak signal. For me, here in Appleton, those TWC rabbit ears aren't good enough to get a good WLUK signal. So guess what? I don't watch WLUK anymore...that's one less viewer watching their content and watching their advertisers' ads. I know people that have even paid $20-$30 for an indoor HDTV antenna and were able to get great signals for every local broadcast station but could not get a strong enough signal to get their HDTV to recognize WLUKs signal. If this is the kind of poor signal quality I (and some others) get here in Appleton, less than 20 miles from their transmitter, there can't be too many happy over-the-air viewers left watching WLUK. It seems that TWC provides a highly valuable service to local broadcast stations and is right to tell WLUK and LIN TV to take a hike when it comes to this new fee they want to charge for their content...if anything, TWC should be charging WLUK for the privilege of being carried to more homes with better quality of signal than WLUK can provide on their own.
http://www.just-say-no-to-lintv.com
I wonder how much Time
I wonder how much Time Warner is paying for these antennas. A Penny a day for a year is only $3.65, my guess is as cable subscribers, we are going to pay for this in our cable bills this year...Thanks for the "free" antenna TWC...If you didn't pick one up, you might as well, because you will be paying for it anyway.
We see price increases
We see price increases because of the copper in the wires and the gas used to travel to an installation. So, should we expect to see our bills come down as gas and copper prices have declined...I doubt it. I dropped TWC months ago because they didn't have fox in HD, now no fox at all...I am so happy to have dropped it, plus with AT&T I get the NFL Network.