WLUK gone from Time Warner Cable
WLUK TV is not on Time Warner Cable this morning, and viewing of Sunday’s Green Bay Packers game on the cable system is in question.The station’s parent company, LIN TV, and Time Warner corporate officials did not come to an agreement for retransmission consent by the deadline of midnight Thursday.
So the channel is blocked for about 150,000 Time Warner customers throughout northeastern Wisconsin.
A Time Warner statement on the screen where WLUK normally airs says, “By refusing us an extension, LIN TV pulled WLUK from Time Warner Cable.”
Negotiations continued past 11 p.m. and Time Warner asked for a 24-hour extension, said William Harke, spokesman for Time Warner in this region. LIN did not agree, and the station was pulled, Harke said.
In a statement on WLUK’s Web site today, vice president and general manager Jay Zollar said it has tried for several months to reach an agreement.
“We are disappointed in the outcome of our negotiations with Time Warner, especially since we have successfully reached deals with every major cable, satellite and telecommunications company who recognize our fair market value,” Zollar said. “We will continue to negotiate with Time Warner. Unfortunately, we do not know if, or when, we will reach an agreement.”It’s estimated that 2.7 million Time Warner subscribers receive one of LIN stations.
Time Warner’s Web site today offered this in a letter to customers from Time Warner Cable Wisconsin president Jack Herbert: “We have been negotiating in good faith, but the decision to remove WLUK from our channel line-up was made by LIN TV and WLUK, not by Time Warner Cable.
We asked WLUK FOX 11 for an extension of our agreement allowing us to keep this channel on your lineup. They said ‘No.’”Other options for viewing WLUK include over the air with an antenna or via the Dish Network, DirecTV or AT&T in certain areas.Time Warner is offering free antennas and A/B switches so customers may watch WLUK programming over the air. The equipment will be available at Time Warner’s payment service centers in Green Bay, Appleton and Oshkosh.“We’ll have a lot of people at our stores passing out antennas and giving away instructions on how to install the antennas and some instructions on our Wisconsin On Demand station as well,” Harke said.
The apparent center of the dispute is the compensation that LIN is asking for Time Warner to air its stations’ programming.Besides the Packers, scheduled to appear on Fox eight more times this season, Time Warner customers also would miss shows like “The Simpsons” and baseball’s National League Championship Series and two World Series games.
3 comments:
1 penny per day per customer. That's what Fox 11 is asking for and it doesn't seem unfair. When I HAD Time Warner- a good chunk of my bill went to ESPN (at least $3-4). All FOX wants is 30cents per month from each customer, which would be a monthly increase of $45,000 to Time Warner. Just because Time Warner wasn't paying this cost, doesn't mean they don't have to pay the cost. In my opinion- Time Warner is getting what they deserve. This cable company is the king of adding on charges and I think it's funny that a company added charges on to them.
It's just too bad that the Packer fans such as Vinny are the people who suffer. In May of 2007, I got rid of Time Warner and went with bunny ears. I still get Fox 11 with my bunny ears- and I've saved $1700 in cost since canceling Time Warner.
I have mixed feeling on this subject. I do think Time Warner cable charges too much to their customers because they are the only cable company in this area and have no competition. On the other hand, if they give into WLUK, next thing you know the other local stations will want to be paid for their signals, too. This needs to stop somewhere. As much as I dislike Time Warner and their ways....in this case, I agree with what they're doing. Otherwise, before you know it, Time Warner customers will be paying for all the local stations, whose signals are free to everyone else. If it got really bad, Time Warner may just loose all their customers. People could switch to DISH or Satellite TV. Who knows what will happen. Time will tell. It is an interesting subject to keep updated on. Thanks Vinny for bringing it to the CORE Charter school for our opinions.
We got the bunny ears they were giving away free and it took my husband about 2 minutes to hook them up. We got to watch the Packers play with no problem, (except we couldn't rewind and pause with our DVR)> :)
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