Time Warner Cable on Friday reached a deal to keep carrying Fox Networks programming after the companies negotiated through New Year’s Day to avoid a blackout of TV shows like The Simpsons and college and NFL football games in 13 million US homes.
The No. 2 US cable carrier and Fox, a News Corp unit, announced the deal after an 11th-hour contract extension following months of negotiations that failed to produce a deal ahead of a midnight deadline.
Terms were not disclosed in a joint statement announcing the deal, and neither side would share details.
The dispute had focused on how much Time Warner Cable should pay for the right to deliver the Fox network, which is broadcast for free over public airwaves, to its cable subscribers in big cities like New York and Los Angeles.
News Corp, controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, had been targeting about US$1 a month per subscriber, a sum Time Warner Cable had called “unreasonable.” Time Warner Cable did not say what it had offered, but privately, executives had pointed to deals with smaller broadcasters for about US$0.20 to US$0.25 a subscriber.
In a short joint statement News Corp deputy chairman Chase Carey described the new agreement as “fair” and said it “recognizes the value of our programming.”
Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt described the new contract as a “reasonable deal.”
Time Warner Cable was also negotiating on behalf of privately held cable company Bright House Networks, which is covered by the deal.
Both companies had waged aggressive marketing campaigns seeking support from the affected subscribers, but neither side was well-positioned for a long standoff.
Time Warner Cable faces stiff competition for video customers from satellite providers and phone companies, and would have been reluctant to lose popular shows like American Idol, which returns to Fox on Jan. 12.
But Fox risked a loss in advertising revenue if more than 13 million homes were not able to see its shows.
Meanwhile, the prospect of sports fans being unable to watch college and NFL football games on Fox’s free-to-air broadcast has attracted attention from the US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julian Genachowski and members of the US Congress.
Earlier on Friday, Time Warner Cable agreed to a short extension of its existing contract with Scripps Networks Interactive’s Food Network.
However, another cable operator, Cablevision Systems Corp, with 3 million subscribers in the New York area, said it had been unable to reach a new carriage agreement with Scripps and dropped both Food Network and HGTV, the home and garden network.
Cablevision said in a statement it had “no expectations” of carrying Scripps programming again.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
RSS