LIN television turned off the signals of 15 of its TV stations last week to Time Warner Cable systems when the companies failed to reach a new retransmission consent agreement.
A LIN TV rep said “Time Warner’s contract to carry LIN TV’s stations on its cable system has expired, and as of midnight [Friday], Time Warner is no longer carrying our station’s programming on its cable system.” Negotiations are continuing.
The stations affected are located in Buffalo, NY; Austin, TX; Green Bay, WI; Mobile, AL; Springfield, MA; Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Terre Haute, IN; and Columbus, Toledo, and Dayton, OH.
Time Warner has argued it should not have to pay for free over-the-air broadcast signals. KXAN-TV, a LIN station in Austin, TX, placed the following message on its Web site:
“We do not believe that a penny per day per subscriber is an unreasonable demand for our award-winning news, sports and entertainment programming,” the station said. “It is actually much less than what cable companies compensate many of its cable networks, most of which do not have the high viewing of your local NBC station.”
