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Fox spokesman says company will allow "a little more time" as talks continue
By Melissa Grego -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/1/2010 12:11:00 AM
At the stroke of midnight Eastern Standard Time, News Corp. had not pulled its Fox signals on the Time Warner Cable system, although the two sides still had not sealed a retransmission consent deal for Fox-owned stations and several Fox-owned national and regional cable networks.

"We're still negotiating and are going to allow a little more time," a Fox spokesman told B&C.

Time Warner Cable confirmed that it had received "a brief extension with Fox, Food, and GAC as negotiations continue."

The extension appears to be a few hours. The contracts expire according to local time--so, for example, the deal for KTTV in Los Angeles expires at midnight Pacific Standard Time. The national cable networks involved expire at midnight Pacific Time as well. So a short three-hour extension would extend the negotiations until the last deadline of the deal.

The talks, which have been ongoing for months, heated up in recent days as executives met in Los Angeles, the deadline loomed and discussion focused on price. Fox is asking for $1 per subscriber for its stations. If the parties do not come to a deal or an extension, News Corp. is expected to pull Fox signals from Time Warner Cable systems. In an e-mail on Dec. 30, News Corp. Deputy Chairman-President-COO Chase Carey indicated he would not defer to arbitration and would not authorize Fox's signals to be telecast on TWC if a satisfactory deal was not reached.

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) told Fox that if it does not find a way to keep its broadcast signals on the air after the Dec. 31 expiration of its contract with Time Warner, he wants the FCC to step in and mandate that interim carriage. That came late Dec. 30 in response to Carey's letter to Kerry explaining that Fox was not interested in arbitration of the retrans dispute, which Kerry had proposed and Time Warner agreed to.

Both companies have active consumer campaigns related to the dispute underway, and numerous parties have urged the companies to come to a deal before it expires. While FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Dec. 31 joined the call for the companies to come to an agreement, he did not go so far as to set forth any mandate.

Meantime, another contentious retrans dispute over an agreement that expires at midnight Dec. 31 was temporarily resolved in the afternoon of Dec. 31: Sinclair and Mediacom have agreed to an eight-day interim carriage agreement. The deal is at terms set by Sinclair, according to a Mediacom source, and at a price higher than the current one.

Genachowski, praised the Sinclair-Mediacom move Thursday, urged the parties to strike a long-term deal, but said the FCC would not step in to extend carriage past that Jan. 8 date. He also said he had asked Fox and Time Warner to follow suit and agree to an extension.

The Sinclair extension protects Mediacom subscribers' access to a bunch of college bowl games, including the Jan. 5 Orange Bowl and Jan. 7 national championship game. However, the season premiere of American Idol is slated for Jan. 12, after the extension expires. The extension affects 24 stations and viewers in 12 states.

In addition, Time Warner Cable on Dec. 30 extended its retrans consent deal with Raycom to Jan. 15.

Raycom President/CEO Paul McTear told B&C the new deal is nearly finished. The broadcaster and the cable operator will resume talks early next week, and McTear envisions an agreement free of vitriol.

"We've always had a pretty good relationship with Time Warner Cable," says McTear. "I don't think we would've extended the deadline if we weren't confident we could [work out] a long-term deal."

The Fox-TWC negotiations concern retransmission consent deals for Fox-owned TV stations and cable networks that include FX and Fuel (but not Fox News Channel or Fox Business Channel, which are part of separate deals) in six markets. There are Fox stations in New York, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando, Dallas and Austin. The companies also are negotiating deals for carriage of regional sports networks and/or some of Fox's national cable channels in more than two dozen markets. The national cable networks deals expire at midnight Pacific Time.

As previously reported, the agreement these two companies come to have benchmark implications across the board for both the broadcasting and cable sectors (see "Cover Story: Retrans...The Bloody Battle to Save Broadcast Television"). Whatever fee Fox secures will set a precedent for retrans negotiations industrywide.

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I have slight feeling that Fox News Channel is supporting John McCain more than others, what do you think? I keep heaing Fox News Channel say that they are Fair & Balanced, but I have a slight feeling that they are helping the Republicans. What do you think?
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Having worked for News Corp in their TV Station Group for many years including time before FOX News Channel and up to 2 years ago, with fairly close ties, I can tell you that the number of Liberals who work, not only in front of the camera (and no, I am NOT talking about Alan Colmes, who really is less of a Liberal than he wants people to think even though he IS out there sometimes), but off air (i.e. Producers and managers, the ones who decide the actual content of the shows), would amaze even Media Matters. The reporters and anchors, such as Shep Smith and Bret Baier (he used to work at WRAL in Raleigh before going to FNC in the late 90's), Steve Harrigan, Jane Skinner, etc are pretty much fair and balanced. Their reputation as a journalist is important for them to maintain believability. The opinion pundits such as Glenn Beck (ultra Libertarian/Conservative), Bill O'Reilly (who really is a more Libertarian than Conservative but does lean Right), Sean Hannity (extreme Conservative), Greta van Sustern (leans Liberal) and the afore mentioned Mr Colmes (who of course is Liberal) make out a fairly rounded group of people. The regular weekday and weekend FOX & Friends hosts (remember, F&F is not intended to be a news show or an opinion show, but a good feeling wake up show so you will see a sampling of everything from hard politics, breaking news to pure entertainment) for the most part are Moderate's who lean Right (meaning they vote for the best candidate, not the party) but are not what I would call Conservative like a Beck or a Hannity or even an O'Reilly. But as the old saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and of course that would be Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity, who all lean or are very Right. They do drown out the others quite often (much to the pleasure of the bean counters at News Corp).

Now most of the producers behind the scenes are liberal in their political leanings. But these people realize that being Left right now, doesn't feed the bull dog (can you say MSNBC?) and with the country a right leaning, God fearing nation, they have to create shows that Americans will watch to keep their jobs, plan and simple. No ratings, no job no matter what your political persuasion is. In that house, the politics of money rein supreme. So the messages are ones of Moderate social values and Politics (which these days gets confused as being "Conservative") in nature except for the above mentioned opinion shows.

Of course this is all off topic of the thread since it was about FOX owned and operated over the air TV stations (only 27 nationwide) and the agreement to carry those stations on Time-Warner Cable. But the problem, as happens a lot, is the FOX Network (which is about as far from Conservative as you can get when you consider they were the first national over the air network to routinely use the word "ass" on a regular scripted program long before the other networks did - Married With Children in the late 80's early 90's) and FOX News Channel are confused as one in the same even though they are not. They just happened to be both owned by the News Corporation but are completely different divisions within the company and are run by two completely different groups of people. FOX Network is run out of Los Angeles by one group of entertainment executives who have no experience with news (and who are generally Liberal with some being extreme Liberal) while FOX News Channel is based out of New York City and is run by a different set of executives who were brought up through the ranks of news and interview shows. Some are Conservative like Roger Ailes, the man who is at the top of FOX News while other executives below Roger are a mix of Conservatives and Liberals. Many of the mid level managers I am aware of are Moderates or Liberals with Conservatives being outnumbered, but not by a great amount. It really is a good mix and I don't know how Roger Ailes keeps them at FNC for years either, but he somehow does. If you want to "do news" as a profession and don't care about politics, then FNC is the place you want to be right now, hands down.

Having worked for FOX Stations Group for 13 years (our station was sold with 7 other stations right before the economy went south two years ago), I can say with no reservations they are a good company to work for, no matter what your political leanings are. And I would work for them again with no reservations. And to most, that is the most important slant of all.