Time Warner Cable and CBS may not be agreeing on much at the negotiation table, but they have both decided to set a new 5PM EST Friday, August 3 deadline for the ongoing negotiations to keep the CBS content on stations in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh. Time Warner Cable briefly cut off some customers last night after a midnight EST deal-making deadline came and went with no agreement in place.
“We have agreed to an extension with CBS until Friday, August 2nd at 5pm ET, while we continue negotiations,” a CBS spokesman told The Verge earlier today.
A statement from Time Warner regarding the disconnect claims that the cable company “offered to pay reasonable increases, but CBS’s demands are out of line and unfair –- and they want Time Warner Cable to pay more than others pay for the same programming.”
CBS has responded by saying TWC is “incapable of accepting the concept that the value of a company’s programming should be in line with its popularity.”
“It’s a very difficult negotiation,” CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday. “We should be paid for our programming.”
Time Warner Cable has warned CBS that it could insert another broadcast network into the channel slots reserved for CBS after a blackout. Reportedly the cable company is in talks with several programmers to take the prime low-numbered channels in the areas affected by the licensing agreement.
According to sources, Time Warner Cable pays between 75 cents and $1 per subscriber. CBS is reported seeking as much as $2 per customer. CBS CEO Les Moonves said in a memo to customers earlier this month that “it’s not like Time Warner Cable doesn’t have the money. Cable is a very, very profitable business, and Time Warner Cable can certainly afford to pay CBS a fair rate for our programming without passing any added cost on to its customers.”
