Published: September 15, 2008 11:18 pm            

Time Warner Cable, WTHI working to reach contract deal

TERRE HAUTE — The parent company of WTHI-TV announced Monday that issues with Time Warner Cable Inc. over a retransmission contract are unresolved, which could lead to the television station pulling its signal from the cable company’s lineup.

A short-term contract expires Oct. 2.

“We notified Time Warner over 45 days ago that Oct. 2 would be the date, in hopes they would start negotiating or even come to the table. We are less than two weeks away and our agreement expires. We have been extending agreements for a long time,” said Todd Weber, general manager of WTHI-TV.

“We are asking for a fair market compensation,” Weber said.

“LIN TV Corp. [the parent company of WTHI] has a retransmission agreement with practically every cable and satellite and telephone operator in the country, so Time Warner is the last one for them to have an agreement.”

Time Warner cable has about 22,0000 subscribers, Weber said, in Vigo County. LIN TV is seeking payment of “less than a penny a day per subscriber” from the cable company for retransmission rights, according to WTHI-TV’s Web site — www.wthitv.com. At 30 cents per month per subscriber, that would equate to about $79,000 a year in revenue to LIN TV Corp.

Anthony A. Lee, marketing manager for Time Warner Cable’s Terre Haute office, said the company hopes both parties can reach an agreement.

“We hope that LIN TV will not take its channels away from our customers. We are trying to manage costs for our customers; LIN TV is looking to make more money,” Lee said.

“We are negotiating in good faith to reach a fair and reasonable deal with broadcasters, as we always have, but we cannot allow our customers to bear the cost of the broadcasters’ challenged business model,” Lee said.

“We have successfully reached fair agreements with hundreds of broadcasters and cable networks across the country in recent years and are confident we will with LIN TV too,” Lee said.

LIN TV has formed a marketing and promotional partnership with DISH Network to encourage consumers to switch to the DISH Network if WTHI-TV’s signal is removed from the cable system. It is not the first time that corporation has urged cable viewers to jump to satellite television. LIN TV Corp. had urged carriers to jump to DISH Network before an agreement was reached in June with Charter Communications, in northeast Wisconsin.

For a limited time, all new subscribers to DISH Network in Terre Haute will receive a $50 incentive to switch to DISH Network, according to a release from LIN TV. Weber said LIN TV has an agreement with Direct TV to broadcast its signal, but Direct TV “has chosen not to offer that service in the Terre Haute market,” Weber said.

Weber said not retransmitting WTHI-TV on cable “will impact our viewers who cannot view CBS programming, the news, the Indianapolis Colts, “Survivor “or all CBS shows. It will impact the community who rely on so many community events and activities. The thing we cannot measure is who is going to switch to dish and who will watch us via an antenna.

“It will be less convenient, but I would anticipate that most people will find alternative ways to watch us, via the digital signal or analog signal over the air or switch to satellite” television, Weber said.

LIN TV Corp. is one of the largest television station groups in the nation, with 29 owned and/or operated television stations and Web sites in 17 U.S. markets, delivering sports and entertainment programming to 9 percent of U.S. television households, reaching an average of 10 million homes per week.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.

        

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