KMBC programs to continue on cable

More than 300,000 cable television subscribers came within a few hours Wednesday night of having to resort to rabbit ears to watch Kansas City's top-rated station. Time Warner Cable was ready to pull the plug on KMBC-TV, Channel 9, after an impasse in talks over the station's agreement with the cable company. Just hours before the midnight deadline, the two sides agreed to extend their existing deal until Feb. 15. But both sides say they are far from resolving the conflict. Under federal law, each of the country's 1,700-plus TV stations has a choice in dealing with the cable operators in its area. A station can demand that its signal be carried on cable systems. Or the station can ask for payment from the cable company for the privilege of carrying its signal. That's known as "retransmission consent," and it was the route taken by KMBC's owner, Hearst-Argyle Television, the nation's ninth-largest owner of TV stations. According to industry sources, New York-based Hearst-Argyle has begun to insert tough new language involving cable networks owned by its parent company, Hearst Corp. Hearst owns 20 percent of ESPN, 37.5 percent of A&E - and 50 percent of Lifetime, which is the source of the KMBC dispute. A spokesman at Time Warner Cable's headquarters in Connecticut said Wednesday that Hearst-Argyle was trying to double the price Time Warner pays for Lifetime. Cable operators pay a fee for nearly every cable channel they carry. They are loath to accept large fee increases, which lead to higher cable bills for their subscribers. Time Warner's deal to carry KMBC expired Dec. 31, but Hearst-Argyle had granted the cable company an extension through Wednesday night. With less than eight hours until the extension expired, Time Warner Cable's local vice president of public affairs, Carol Rothwell, began faxing a memo to elected officials in the cities served by the company. The memo said Hearst-Argyle had "denied Time Warner Cable permission to continue carrying its signal after midnight tonight." But about that same time, top executives at Hearst-Argyle were faxing their counterparts at Time Warner, offering a four-week truce and allowing the Kansas City system to continue carrying KMBC. Time Warner accepted the offer about 5 p.m. Time Warner Cable serves the two Kansas Citys, most of Johnson County, Liberty and other communities in the area.