Published: October 09, 2008 11:49 pm         

‘Nothing new’ in WTHI-TV, cable talks

CBS station off Time Warner since Oct. 3

TERRE HAUTE — A week after the WTHI-TV pulled its signal from Time Warner Cable, negotiations are still ongoing and area residents have taken notice with mixed levels of attention.

Todd Weber, general manager of WTHI-TV, said Wednesday that “we’re still actively negotiating, but we have nothing new to report.”

After a contract dispute, Time Warner Cable no longer has a legal right to retransmit WTHI-TV or several other stations owned by LIN TV Corp.

The station went off the cable system Oct. 2 after negotiators failed to reach an agreement late Thursday night.

LIN TV seeks about 30 cents per month per customer from Time Warner to give the cable company the right to retransmit its signal.

Time Warner Cable services Terre Haute, Riley, West Terre Haute and portions of rural Vigo County.

DISH Satellite customers and those with antennas can still receive the signal.

According to Courtney Guertin, spokeswoman for LIN TV, the companies are “still negotiating” at the corporate level.

LIN Television Corp. (NYSE: TVL) currently has 15 stations in 11 markets not broadcasting on Time Warner, she said Thursday.

Those markets include Austin, Texas; Buffalo, N.Y.; Columbus, Toledo and Dayton, Ohio; Green Bay, Wis.; Mobile, Ala.; Springfield, Mass.; Indianapolis and Terre Haute.

“We negotiate all the stations at once,” she explained.

And with markets across the country, the topic is bigger than a simple contract dispute.

“All broadcasters are asking for fair market compensation now,” Guertin said. “Essentially they’re taking our product and reselling it for financial profit, so it’s only fair that we get our share,” she said.

LIN TV, along with its subsidiaries, owns or operates 29 television stations in 17 U.S. markets, all of which are affiliates of a national broadcast network, according to information on their corporate Web site.

“They’re calling us greedy, but really it’s them being greedy,” Guertin said. “They’re taking our product and selling it and not giving us fair compensation for it.”

According to Indiana State University spokesman Dave Taylor, some students are taking notice.

ISU has 3,566 students in campus housing, with 3,203 in residence halls and 363 in University Apartments, he said, all of whom have Time Warner as their source of cable television.

Taylor said university staff in the residential facilities have noted some student concern about the loss of the local network.

“It’s kind of a wait-and-see approach right now,” he said. “We’ll see what happens in the negotiations between the people at Time Warner and LIN.”

Taylor said a lot of university students spend more time on the Internet today than in front of a television set, but coverage of ISU events draws their attention.

“I think that in our case, certainly, if they’re out and about during the day and they hear the local station is covering something here, they’ll check it out,” he said, adding that Terre Haute is fortunate in the level of local coverage provided by all media outlets in the area, including broadcast, radio and print.

Another large concentration of cable viewers is Terre Haute’s Union Hospital, with 343 licensed beds and what spokeswoman Kristi Roshel estimated to be “a similar amount” of televisions.

The hospital issued a memorandum last week when a staff member asked about the dispute, she said. The hospital currently directs questions to the Web sites of the parties involved, she said.

“So far, we’ve had no patient complaints,” she said.

According to Weber, the Terre Haute market contains about 147,000 households throughout Indiana and Illinois, and about 39 percent of them use cable providers which vary from county to county.

Time Warner Cable services about 25,000 households in this market, according to information provided last week by spokeswoman Irene Christopher.

Guertin said LIN TV has “a great relationship” with its advertisers and is working them as the negotiations linger.

A timetable on a resolution is still unknown, she said.

Christopher was not available for comment.

Brian Boyce can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.