Cable Companies, Broadcast Stations Clash Over Carriage Fees

Sinclair Broadcast Group on January 6 blacked out 22 of its stations from cable operator Mediacom Communications Corp. in a carriage fee dispute, and on Friday, “with a blacked-out Super Bowl looming for some customers, the battle was resolved in Sinclair’s favor,” according to a front-page piece by the WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Grant & Barnes. Sources said that Sinclair “was seeking about [$0.40-0.50] per subscriber per month for its major broadcast stations,” including CBS. Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso “acknowledged his adversary got much of what it was asking.” Commisso: “I don’t feel good about this.” Sinclair now has said that if it does not obtain carriage fees from Comcast by the end of February, “it may shut down signals in about 30 markets.” In January, Sinclair settled with Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 operator, for what it called “a mutually acceptable economic agreement” to carry 35 of its stations (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/5).

HI-DEF: CABLEFAX DAILY notes that as of Friday afternoon, cable operators and broadcast stations in at least five U.S. markets had yet to secure deals for CBS HD — Time Warner and Granite Broadcasting in Binghamton, New York; Charter Communications and Belo Corp. in St. Louis and New Orleans; Comcast and Lin Broadcasting in Albuquerque; and Comcast and Nexstar in Altoona, Pennsylvania (CABLEFAX DAILY, 2/5). With Charter and Belo unable to reach deals in St. Louis and New Orleans, Jim Rothschild, Operations Dir of Belo’s KMOV-CBS in St. Louis, noted that cable operators in other cities had “agreed to Belo’s terms,” including Time Warner, Cox and Comcast (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 2/3).