NAB criticized DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Dish Network for...

that since 2000, “just .3 percent of pay TV companies have ever been involved in a program dispute resulting in a disruption of local television service.” The three companies are responsible for three out of every four retrans blackouts in 2012, the association said: Rather than negotiate in the free market, “this cozy pay TV cabal is manufacturing a phony crisis in hopes that Congress will fix a ‘problem’ that these companies are creating.” The most recent blackouts involve 26 cable channels that were dropped from DirecTV in a carriage dispute with Viacom (CD July 12 p10) and a broadcast retrans dispute between Hearst Television and Time Warner Cable (CD July 11 p18). Nexstar filed an FCC complaint against Time Warner Cable for importing the broadcaster’s signals from other markets with the same affiliation as the Hearst stations that were dropped from the cable operator’s lineups (CD July 16 p5). The operator is disappointed Nexstar “is working to assist and expand Hearst’s leverage against us and our customers,” a spokeswoman said. “We are confident that we are operating within our rights and the law and will continue to fight for our customers against this aggressive and coercive broadcaster behavior.” Broadcast-TV networks “can’t continue to demand huge price increases and expect us to silently pass those cost increases on to our customers,” Time Warner Cable said in a news release Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnhchq). Hearst said it presented the operator with a proposal Tuesday “that was within 5 percent of its offer to Hearst on July 9.” The cable company has failed to respond, Hearst President David Barrett said: The operator “is acting as the conductor of the public relations bandwagon ridden by other multi-channel video distributors in various unrelated negotiations with program providers.” Talks for a new retrans deal between the cable operator and broadcaster are “ongoing,” a Time Warner Cable spokeswoman said Wednesday afternoon. “In fact, our lead negotiator had lunch with Hearst officials yesterday, and we received a written proposal from them last night.” The operator agrees with Hearst that the stations should be restored to the cable subscribers, the spokeswoman said. “Only Hearst has the power to restore the programming. We agree with our customers that they shouldn’t lose their favorite network shows -- that’s why we've made great efforts to bring it to them where legally possible while Hearst is blacking out our customers.” TV stations are “manufacturing a retransmission consent crisis for consumers,” said American Cable Association CEO Matt Polka. “Broadcasters support the status quo because it allows them to leverage monopoly market power and friendly federal regulations to slam viewers with sudden signal blackouts that don’t end until targeted pay-TV providers surrender outrageous amounts of cash, driving up monthly bills."