Blog Archive

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

An Update on Cable Programming Changes and Negotiations



It is fall in Glasgow. The leaves and landscape are changing, and some changes are coming to EPB’s cable television lineup as well.

Like so many times over the last few months, our negotiations with the programming providers are causing us to reconsider what channels we offer. The first change is about to result in G4 (EPB Channel 147 and HD Channel 552) being dropped from our system on November 30.

As in most programming changes, the reason for this change comes down to money. NBC Universal owns G4, and has announced they will discontinue it in the near future. They also own NBC Sports Network. NBC has just purchased rights to some NASCAR races and has increased the cost of NBC Sports Network to cover the cost of this programming. In order to help us pay the increased cost, they gave us a chance to drop G4, and we are going to take it so as to keep our programming cost increases down.

This is not the last change you will see before the end of the year. We are in discussion with the broadcast stations in Bowling Green, Louisville, and Nashville. The early indications are that the broadcasters are going to ask for whopping increases in the fees we must pay to carry many of those stations. Already one broadcaster has asked for a nearly 400% increase! Simply put, we are not going to pay such ridiculous fees because we would simply have to pass them along to you. Any station that makes such a demand will very likely be dropped from our system at the end of the year.

These discussions will be going on throughout the month of November. We will keep you posted, and even ask for your advice, via our social networking sites so we can make sure to represent your feelings correctly in these discussions.

Stay tuned. The programmers are not through socking it to us through their fee demands. In January we will have to adjust our cable rates to reflect all of our new costs for programming agreements signed during the last half of 2014. We will tell you how all of this is going as soon as we have deals completed.

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