Figures on retransmission consent payments show “Time Warner...
Figures on retransmission consent payments show “Time Warner Cable and the pay TV lobby engage in overheated and misleading rhetoric on the merits” of retrans, said an NAB spokesman Monday by email. He cited figures from industry research firm SNL…
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Kagan, as CBS and Time Warner Cable have been disagreeing about how much the operator will pay the broadcaster with their retrans deal expiring Wednesday (CD July 22 p7). Retrans fees “remain in the aggregate quite low compared to the aggregate programming fees that cable networks are collecting,” said the spokesman. Broadcast retrans cost $2.36 billion in 2012, or 8.2 percent of the $28.9 billion in fees to basic-cable networks, said SNL Kagan figures released Monday by NAB (http://bit.ly/12ZzlWF). The firm forecast broadcast retrans payments this year of $3.02 billion will be 9.5 percent of the $31.7 billion in such cable channel fees. “Contrary” to “the cable industry’s claims that broadcast retrans fees are causing cable rates to rise,” cable rates have increased at a lower rate since the mid-2000s, “the time frame” when TV stations “began seeking modest compensation for our popular programming,” said the NAB spokesman. Cable rates rose 4.8 percent in 2011, vs. a 5.4 percent increase the year before, a 3.7 percent rise in 2009 and a 5.9 percent increase in 2008, said SNL Kagan figures from NAB. A Time Warner Cable spokesman declined to comment.