Ugly Situation May Unfold here in MD,DE,and parts of VA & PA w/Fox vs.Comcast

The contract affects regular and high definition channels of 30 stations -- including Baltimore's WBFF FOX 45 and WNUV CW 54 -- and 3 million customers nationwide in 23 markets such as Richmond Va., Pittsburgh and Tampa, Fla.

Cable customers in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties could have lost access to the Fox and CW networks.
"Our customers will continue to receive all of the Sinclair channels while we continue to work with them to reach a fair agreement," Comcast said in a statement released Thursday.
Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider, began notifying high definition customers of the potential interruption last month. This week, the cable operator also placed ads in newspapers and mailed notices to their subscribers, proclaiming "You won't be 'out-foxed' by Sinclair Broadcasting!"
Comcast serves more than 1 million customers in Maryland, Southern Delaware and Richmond, Va.
Sinclair, one of the nation's largest independent owners of broadcast stations, has been at the forefront of demanding so-called retransmission fees from cable operators to carry local station's broadcast signals.
But cable operators, such as Comcast, maintain their customers should not have to pay for network affiliates that are available free over the airwaves. Sinclair struck a deal last month with Time Warner Cable, allowing the nation's second-largest cable operator, to carry analog and digital signals of Sinclair's 35 stations in 22 markets including Buffalo, N.Y. and part of Ohio. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sinclair is locked in a bitter, nearly four-week-old stalemate with Mediacom Communications Corp., a cable operator with headquarters in Middletown, N.Y. Sinclair blocked its 22 stations from Mediacom's cable systems in 13 states, including Iowa, Wisconsin and Florida, resulting in 2 million viewers in the Midwest and South losing access to network affiliates, such as Fox, NBC and CBS.




This was released when they first signed a 30 day extension last month. Current contract expires Thursday March 1. So if this doesnt get worked out in these particular comcast serviced areas we will be using antenna to receive our fox & cw.hno:

Watching shows like 24 & American Idol through a fuzzy pic just doesnt seem right.

What the fuck? This is outrageous.

Here's another article with a bit more info

Sinclair Broadcast Group could end up yanking 30 stations off of Comcast because of an ongoing battle over retransmission consent - leaving some 3 million customers without their broadcast signal.
Sinclair's carriage deal with Comcast is up Feb. 5 and the broadcaster is demanding cash from the cable operator to carry its stations in 23 markets. Comcast, the nation's biggest cable operator, is refusing to pay cash and says Sinclair is the only broadcaster with which it can't reach a deal.

But in an interesting twist, many of its stations can't go black then due to a federal law that says no in-market station can be pulled from cable during a sweeps period.

By demanding cash, Sinclair becomes the latest broadcaster to assert its legal right to demand money in exchange for allowing the cable operator to retransmit their signal. Last month, fellow station owner Northwest Broadcasting Corp. pulled Fox stations on Time Warner Cable in three states because the two couldn't reach an agreement.

So far, stations have accepted advertising time from major cable operators or carriage of sister cable networks and have only gotten cash from satellite and small cable operators. Kagan Research projects that station owners stand to collect some $225 million in retransmission fees this year from cable and satellite operators and telcos, and $1 billion in 2009, the year some station owners’ cable deals, notably CBS, come due then.

The cable operators have historically said that they do not want to pay cash because they do not want to create higher bills for their customers, bills already getting hammered by the FCC as too high. Comcast would not say how much Sinclair was seeking and Sinclair did not return calls at press time.

In a statement, Comcast Corporation Executive Vice President David Cohen said: "Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the nation’s largest broadcast television station owners, has demanded large cash payments from Comcast, and ultimately consumers, so that these customers can continue to view broadcast television stations that are available over-the-air for free. We do not believe that our customers should have to pay extra to watch free TV.

"We are currently negotiating with Sinclair to reach a fair agreement, but are not legally allowed to carry these channels without Sinclair’s permission. We will do everything in our power to avoid service interruptions without adding Sinclair’s proposed fees to customers’ bills."

Sinclair, which owns mostly Fox and MyNetworkTV stations, has had similar battles with Time Warner and Mediacom. Time Warners rights to carry the Sinclair' station in Buffalo was up Dec. 31, according to Sinclair, but was extended until Jan. 12 when an agreement couldn't be reached, according to a Time Warner spokesperson. And Sinclair's contentious retransmission dispute with Mediacom - with Sinclair scheduled to pull 22 stations Jan. 5 - resulted in the cable operator filing a complaint with the FCC .

In a similar standoff, Nexstar pulled its stations off cable systems in four small markets in December 2004 after the operators refused to pay the 30¢ per subscriber rate Nexstar was seeking. Most of the disputes have been resolved, and Nexstar says the majority of cable operators are paying cash (however, CableOne and Cox, two of the biggest operators Nexstar fought, are not).

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<EMBED src="http://m.2mdn.net/922500/VC_300x250anchor.swf?clickTag=http%3A//ad.doubleclick.net/click%253Bh%3Dv8/3507/3/0/%252a/z%253B32503748%253B2-0%253B0%253B8933923%253B4307-300/250%253B17676202/17694097/1%253B%253B%257Esscs%253D%253fhttp%3A//www.varietycareers.com" quality=high wmode=opaque swLiveConnect=TRUE WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="250" bgcolor=# TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" ></EMBED></OBJECT><NOEMBED> </NOEMBED><NOSCRIPT> </NOSCRIPT><SCRIPT><!--if ((!document.images && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mozilla/2.') >= 0) || (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("WebTV") >= 0)){document.write('');document.write(' ');}//--></SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT><!-- for non JavaScript browsers and Netscape 2.x --> </NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- /noindex --></P>Nexstar says retransmission payments will go from almost zero to some 15% of the company’s cash flow over the next five years

Here goes a list of cities. More than I initially thought...

The companies' current carriage agreement covers 30 stations in 23 markets, affecting 3 million Comcast subscribers in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Minneapolis-St.Paul, Tampa-St. Pete, Springfield-Holyoke, Charleston, Flint, Tallahassee- Thomasville, Mobile-Pensacola, Birmingham, Portland-Auburn, Paducah, Charleston, Cincinnati and a handful of smaller markets.

http://www.sbgi.net/business/markets/all.shtml


This is the link off sinclair broadcast's website, where basically if you have comcast and receive the channel(s) listed in your area its in jeopardy of disappearing come Thurs. March 1 unless agreement reached.


We shall see.

Cell Phone Companies or Cable Companies? I like to "just say NO"

This just happened in the Des Moines area. Fox was asking for too much money and mediacom told them to fuck off. We lost our fox for over a week.