Joseph O'Halloran | 07-08-2013
There seems no end in sight to the retrans row between Time Warner Cable and CBS, with the latter’s CEO Les Moonves dismissing as grandstanding TWC’s offer to resolve the dispute through à la carte programming.
On 6 August 2013, in an open letter, TWC chairman and CEO Glen Britt proposed that the two firms immediately agree to resume carriage with new economics restoring popular programmes to screens after the dispute had seen CBS disappear from the bouquets of TWC customers once the contract between the two companies expired.
Yet, replying in kind Moonves slammed the letter as not as he hoped, a sincere offer, but instead “rather a public relations gesture of some kind”. He added: “After reviewing your letter, we have concluded that there is not a sincere or helpful proposal in it. It is, rather, a well-wrought distraction. Last Friday, in spite of the fact that we had offered a one-week extension to remain on the air while we continued our discussions, you chose to take us off the air … Since that night, Friday at 5pm, we have not heard from anybody at Time Warner Cable to discuss anything at all, in spite of your public statements to the contrary. Until, of course, your public letter masquerading as a private one. That's not negotiating. That's grandstanding.”
Addressing head on the issue of the new business model, Mooves was very forthright. “As to your ground-breaking ‘offer’ to go à la carte: Anyone familiar with the entertainment business knows that this is an empty gesture. The economics and structure of the cable industry have created a certain way that content is distributed and compensated. We both know that a true à la carte universe is not one that Time Warner Cable welcomes,” he argued.
Yet the issue is threatening to spill out into the general US TV industry. Already DirecTV d now Cox Communications has added its weight to the cableco.
Speaking to leading US research firm BTIG, Cox’s Bob Wilson, SVP of content acquisitions, said the following statement to BTIG earlier today: “The programming cost issue isn’t limited to Time Warner and CBS. It’s between every video content provider in the programming supply food chain and every video distributor selling programming packages to consumers. The industry has to find a way to work together to address the path we are on with respect to rising content fees, especially for retransmission consent of broadcast stations and sports programming, in a way that responds to consumer needs.”