KETV (Cox Channel 9) announced today that it will deny Cox Communications rights to carry its high definition signal over its digital cable tier beginning Oct. 1 if an agreement is not reached between the two parties.KETV is "seeking fair and reasonable terms from Cox" in exchange for allowing Cox to carry KETV-DT's programming and charge its subscribers for that programming, according to a news release distributed by the ABC affiliate Tuesday.
KETV-DT is available over-the-air for free using a high-definition receiver, but requires a subscription to digital cable and rental of an HD cable box to receive it via Cox.
"We're greatly disappointed that Cox has yet to arrive at a mutually satisfactory solution," said Joel Vilmenay, KETV president and general manager, in the release. "Our station is a leader in our market and we've made substantial investments to bring our viewers high definition digital programming.
"Cox has been actively promoting to current and prospective subscribers the addition of our digital channel to its lineup, and charging its subscribers a premium for our high-definition signals. We're certainly supportive of their adding and promoting our high-definition programming. But they won't come to terms with us on providing fair consideration for that right. To allow any re-distributor of our station's digital signal to benefit economically from our efforts without providing us a reasonable contract for that right would be unacceptable for us."
Hearst-Argyle, which owns KETV, says it anticipates allowing Cox to continue to retransmit KETV's primary analog signal "while the companies continue to work in good faith toward a resolution of retransmission consent terms."
A dispute with Cox over retransmission of a station's HD signal is not a new one in Omaha. In December 2003, KMTV denied Cox permission to carry its digital signal until it was properly compensated. The two parties reached an agreement in January 2006 after KMTV's ownership changed over from Emmis Communications to the Journal Broadcast Group. Details of the agreement were not disclosed, but Steve Wexler, Senior Vice President for Television and Radio Operations at Journal, said at the time, "We are very happy to provide Cox customers the popular entertainment, sports and local news programming on KMTV and CBS in high definition."
5 comments:
Cox doesn't charge for HD channels
Yes they do. The charge is bundled in their rate for digital cable, which is an additional charge over the price of basic cable.
Not true. With a QAM enabled tuner, anyone with basic cable can tune in the local HD channels (and then some).
Husker Mike They do not charge for the HD tier. The Digital is the the same price if you subscribe to HD or not. The only difference is the higher rental fee of the HD box.
an antenna is cheaper than the monthly fees Cox charges (depending on your semantics of what "is" is).
As Cox is no longer a public entity (they bought back all of their stock), they do not need to reveal what they pay ESPN and Discovery each month (base don each subscriber HH). I'm certain KETV wants a piece of that.
But Cox does charge (for converters & other things) for its digital tier.
That is a charge.
Post a Comment