Blog Archive

Monday, November 10, 2008

Broadcast Stations Update

As we described in our last post several days ago, we are in a full-blown arm wrestling battle with the television stations in Bowling Green, Nashville, and Louisville over the fees they want to charge us for the right to provide their signals to you via our cable system. It would be wonderful to report that they have all seen the error of their ways and have decided to allow us to continue receiving and distributing their signals without charge, but such is not the world we live in today. They want money and they want a lot of it -- starting January 1, 2009.

So far only a couple of things are already clear. We are definitely not going to be able to make a deal with the folks at WZTV (our channel 17 which is a FOX affiliate out of Nashville) or WUXP (our channel 15, a UPN affiliate also out of Nashville) so you can already anticipate those channels being gone from our lineup on January 1. However, we are looking for replacements for them.

We are cautiously optimistic that we are going to reach a reasonable deal with WNKY (our channels 7 and 8) out of Bowling Green. We are also fairly optimistic about reaching a deal with WDRB (our channel 16), a FOX affiliate out of Louisville, and we will clearly have deals with KET, WKYU, and WPBM (our channels 11, 18, 23, and 24. Curiously, our neighbors in Bowling Green at WBKO (our channels 12, 13, 14, and 513) are being particularly aggressive in their demands for compensation and we do not have an agreement with them. At the same time, WTVF (our channel 10 and 515), and WAVE (our channel 99) are also not done deals as we have yet to get any sort of final offer from them. We are holding offers from WSMV (NBC affiliate from Nashville that we have not carried for several years) and WHAS (ABC affiliate from Louisville that we also have not carried for several years) and may move forward with these stations if we do not reach reasonable terms with these other stations very soon.

Even at my most optimistic view of how all of this will play out, the result will still likely result in an increased cost of over $1.50 per cable subscriber. As always, stay tuned to this site for the latest information on how this is going to play out for cable customers in Glasgow. Your views and comments and suggestions are always appreciated!

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