Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Tough Cable Television Discussions Continue Through 2015
3:06 PM | 
Posted by
Billy Ray |
While we have
talked a lot lately about progress and issues surrounding our analog-to-digital
channel conversion project, and that conversation will continue; there is
another matter we are battling on your behalf that we have not talked about
lately. This is not a new issue. Rather it is the recurring matter of broadcast
channels, and other cable programming vendors, making outlandish demands for
program access fees, as well as demands that they be the exclusive outlet for
certain programming.
A number of
programming contracts have expired this year, or will expire at the end of the
year. Some of those vendors have settled for reasonable rate increases, but a
couple of them are still hammering away at us with demands for exclusivity and
staggering rate increases. Those vendors are AMC Networks and Max Media
Kentucky (owner of WNKY-CBS and WNKY-NBC in Bowling Green). Shortly after the first of the new year, we will also begin a painful negotiation with Turner Networks.
AMC is riding
the popularity of its Walking Dead series
as it demands huge increases in the fees for AMC channel, as well as demanding
that we add (and ask you to pay for) five more of the channels they own, even
though we do not want them. We, along with over 700 other
small cable operators across the nation, purchase the majority of the
programming you see on TV from National Cable Television Co-op (NCTC), which
gives us better pricing and bargaining leverage. NCTC is in charge of the
negotiations and while we certainly believe an agreement will be reached, there
is also a remote possibility that AMC will walk away from the negotiations and
require all of the cable operators to take AMC off until an agreement is
reached. If you would like to read more about these negotiations, with
continually updated information, you may do so by clicking this link. We
will make every effort to get the best deal possible for our subscribers
working through this co-op.
The situation
with Max Media/WNKY is even worse. They sought, and received, FCC permission to
virtually force WTVF and WSMV off of any cable system serving Barren County. We are in discussions with them and we hope to get them to honor the wishes of the people of Glasgow by allowing us to continue carrying some of the programming on these stations, but the outcome of those talks is still up in the air. They are also demanding very large fee increases for their programming.
Both of these
battles are ongoing, and likely will continue throughout the remainder of 2015.
We will keep you posted on how all of this develops, but a satisfactory outcome
seems unlikely for the people of Glasgow. We are again caught between the dueling issues of dropping programming, or paying a lot more for it.
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3 comments:
You should have never let the Bowling Green stations back on when you dropped them in the first place. In my view no station that is advertiser supported should be able to demand payment from any cable operator for the right to carry their signal. All it is doing is giving them money to be allowed to have more viewers to advertise to with their commercial tv. The stations like HBO I can understand why the others it just isn't right.I say drop them.
Why didnt u keep WNKY dropped?
Let's just say that they were dealt better cards than we were. They had a winning hand.