Portions Of Northern New England Stop Being Misinformed And Return To Being Uninformed

A disagreement over the costs to carry ABC affiliate WMUR’s signal on a North Country cable system has left residents there without a New Hampshire-based TV newscast. Time Warner Cable pulled the plug on WMUR at midnight on June 30 when the three-year agreement ended. At the heart of the dispute is the cost of carrying programing. Last week, an impasse in negotiations between Hearst Television and Time Warner led to the blacking out of Portland-based WMTW’s channel on the cable carrier. “In the past, we have agreed with Hearst TV to carry their stations on our cable systems. This year they have asked for rate increases that are out of line — 300 percent for the same programming they continue to deliver for free over the air and some online. We think that’s unfair,” Andrew Russell, Time Warner spokesman in Portland, Maine, wrote in an e-mail response to a reporter’s inquiry. He added: “One cause of higher cable TV prices is higher fees being demanded by greedy broadcasters. As their advertising dollars decline, they want cable customers to make up the difference. And, if we don’t agree to their outrageous demands, they take away their programming.” (read more at BangorDailyNews)

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Posted by Aubuchon Connery on Jul 18 2012. Filed under featured, Out In The Willie-Wacks, Queer Doins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.