Time Warner and NBC: Deal or no deal?

Did you see that announcement in Monday's Star that Time Warner Cable “may be required” to stop carrying NBC and HGTV? What was that all about?

  In a nutshell, it was about making the government happy while the area's largest cable operator and the owner of KSHB-TV hammered out a new long-term agreement.

  By law, Time Warner must give the public 30 days' notice when any cable channels are in jeopardy of being dropped because the two sides can't come to terms. But the terse, tiny-texted “Legal Notice” ad placed rather prominently on page A-6 raised more questions than it answered.

  So here's the backstory.

  Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. , which owns both KSHB and KMCI-TV (“38 the Spot”), has been in negotiations with Connecticut-based Time Warner Cable over “retransmission consent.” That's a broadcaster's legal right to charge a cable operator for carrying the station. While the law makes it sound very down-home and local, in reality most “retrans” deals are tussles between giant media companies (not unlike the one I work for).

  These negotiations can turn into knock-down-drag-outs, as the broadcaster tries to get as much “value” for its stations as it can. Earlier this year, the Fox affiliate in Spokane cut its feed to Time Warner, affecting about 25,000 subscribers, because its terms weren't being met. And in late February, Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has dozens of stations, threatened to pull them off every Comcast system in the country, affecting 3 million homes in all, but eventually the two sides struck a deal.

  And that seems the likely outcome here. Damon Porter of Time Warner Cable in Kansas City said it was “not likely” that the worst-case scenario would come true, and Craig Allison, general manager of KSHB and KMCI, agreed their corporate lawyers will work this out. The contract actually expired late last year and the two sides have agreed to keep extending it every 30 days. (Which means you may see that “Legal Notice” again in about a month.)

  Scripps owns not only TV stations but a number of cable channels, including HGTV, which also doesn't have an agreement with Time Warner. If past history is any guide, both KSHB and HGTV will be settled at the same time.

KMBC cleans up in Murrow honors

  KMBC-9 won seven prestigious regional Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-TV News Directors Association, more than any other station in the country.

  KMBC was honored for overall excellence and best newscast. It also was recognized for its coverage of the Toby Young jailbreak, Larry “Secret Santa” Stewart, the Overland Park fire, and a unique series in which it followed a single homicide investigation from beginning to end, over several years.

  KCUR-FM (89.3) won five Murrows for its reporting on the 1980s farm crisis, the death of Buck O'Neil, downtown development and Kansas City elections. That was only one less than the total haul of KMOX-AM in St. Louis, which has a much bigger news staff.

  KCTV was honored for its story showing an Independence police officer manhandling a plant that was sent into the station to complain about police brutality.

  The winners from Region 5, which includes Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, will be entered in the national Murrow Awards competition.

Millers back for more

  When Monte and Doris Miller cashed out KMCI, the station they built in 1988 and sold to Scripps in 2000, they indicated they would retire to their three homes.

  But the Millers are back in broadcasting, having snapped up 14 radio stations in central and western Kansas from Iowa-based NRG Media. Their new company, Rocking M Radio, which includes their son Christopher Miller, instantly becomes one of the largest single owners of radio stations in the state. It's just in their blood: Monte's brother Mark Miller publishes the Belleville (Kan.) Telescope, and the journalism and mass communications school at Kansas State University is named for Monte's grandfather, A.Q. Miller Sr.