Time Warner Cable Reaches Terms With CBS/Showtime

Good news on the holiday afternoon for Time Warner Cable customers in NY, DC, Texas, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, and Pittsburgh. The Impasse is over.

A deal has been reached between CBS, parent company to Showtime, and a vital platform for boxing fans who have come to rely on the fight fare offer by that cabler, and TWC.

That means fight fans in those major league locales won’t have to go cold turkey or hit YouTube for leftover goodies, like the All-Access Mayweather-Canelo episode two which TWC customers couldn’t see live on Saturday night.

Here is a statement from CBS chief Les Moonves, who was demanding a beefy raise in carriage fee from TWC, for the right to carry CBS and Showtime content.

I am pleased to inform you that this evening we concluded our content carriage agreement with Time Warner Cable. Effective immediately, CBS will be back on the Time Warner Cable systems in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, and Showtime will be available to their subscribers across the nation. All other disruptions to our viewers will cease, and things will go back to normal, with a new and beneficial agreement in place.

This was a far more protracted dispute than anyone at CBS anticipated, but in spite of the pain it caused to all of us, and most importantly the inconvenience to our viewers who were affected, it was an important one, and one worth pursuing to a satisfactory conclusion. That has been achieved. The final agreements with Time Warner Cable deliver to us all the value and terms that we sought in these discussions. We are receiving fair compensation for CBS content and we also have the ability to monetize our content going forward on all the new, developing platforms that are right now transforming the way people watch television.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those who worked so diligently – around the clock in many cases – to produce this excellent outcome. Thanks go to our Chief Operating Officer, Joe Ianniello, who spearheaded the negotiating efforts, and to Ray Hopkins, our new President of Television Distribution, who was our chief negotiator. Supporting their efforts were the tireless teams at Law, Marketing, Communications and virtually every other department in our company, all of whom came together to make sure this important job was done right. Our thanks to them all.
This has been a difficult time for our viewers and for CBS. I am glad it’s behind us. After a terrific summer of programming, we now all look forward to the new television season. It’s good to be back.

Here is the message Time Warner sent out to their customers, about the development:

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve reached an agreement with CBS that will return their blacked out channels to our lineup immediately (including Showtime, TMC, Flix, Smithsonian, and the CBS broadcast stations in NY, LA, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, and Pittsburgh).

As in all of our negotiations, our main goal was to hold down costs and retain our ability to deliver a great video experience for our customers. We’re pleased that we successfully achieved both.

We hate that these fights have to happen—and that our customers get caught in the middle—but they do allow us to negotiate deals that provide better outcomes for our customers.

We appreciate your patience during this time. Be sure to visit our website at www.TWCConversations.com/CBS for more information and frequently asked questions.  
 
Thank you,
Time Warner Cable

I predicted here that the impasse would be bridge before Sept. 8, before pro football season kicked into gear. But the longer the blackout dragged on, the more nervous I got. Sad to say, with the shifting landscape, of moving platforms, a move towards mobile delivery, and such, I think we can expect more situations such as this. The stakes are extraordinarily high.

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