UPDATE: It's official -- CW's off the air in Lawrence. So is KMBC. Patrick Knorr of Sunflower Cable says, "We have asked them to extend our current agreement while we continue to negotiate and they have refused. They did not communicate this refusal until New Years Eve, while allowed for minimal notice to our customers."
Tom Campo, who handles corporate relations for Hearst, said, "We are working actively to give Sunflower subscribers the programming they want with a mutually satisfying conclusion." So talks are still ongoing, but Hearst seems willing to play a little hardball -- if you call denying viewers that outstanding CW weekend programming "hardball."
If this thing is still going on by Monday, I'll elaborate some more on the state of the cable business right now, and tie in some of the industry reaction to the Viacom-Time Warner deal.
While the rest of America had to deal with a War of the Worlds scenario Wednesday night, with Viacom ginning up its battle with Time Warner and blanketing the country with dire warnings of the end of Dora the Explorer and "South Park" -- ads that didn't apply to 85 percent of the country but spooked non-Time Warner viewers anyway, causing them to tie up unaffected cable operators' phone lines from coast to coast -- other systems actually were dropping channels.
Across this land, Dec. 31 -- it turns out -- is the deadline for many cable operators to renew their agreements with local broadcasters. Without these retransmission agreements, they can't legally carry the NBC, ABC, Fox and other network affiliates on their systems.
Sunflower Broadband, a company that has won many plaudits over the years for upgrading its systems aggressively and having customer service that puts Time Warner's to shame, isn't making any friends out of customers today as word spreads of the impending decision -- which as of last night had not actually happened -- to drop the Kansas City's ABC and CW affiliates after retrans negotiations broke down.
That means that, if the stations go away, Sunflower subscribers in Lawrence will need to fetch rabbit ears and a converter box right now to watch CW shows. Why right now? Isn't the digital-TV switchover happening on TVB's 10th anniversary, Feb. 17? Yeeeeees, but Hearst (which owns KCWE and KMBC) decided to flip the CW affiliate early for reasons that, if you're really interested, I go into at great length here.
The ABC gap will be filled by the out-of-market Topeka affiliate KTKA ... which just happens to be owned by the company that owns Sunflower! Isn't that convenient!
I've put calls into local and corporate management for both companies and will update this story with reax as I get 'em. Meanwhile, enjoy the Sunflower spin:
KMBC and KCWE to leave Lawrence cable system
LAWRENCE, KANSAS January 1, 2009. Sunflower Broadband cable subscribers are no longer receiving Kansas City's Hearst stations KMBC-ABC and KCWE-CW, effective midnight December 31, 2008.
In recent months, broadcasters have demanded compensation for free broadcast television signals from cable operators, including Sunflower Broadband, as part of retransmission negotiations.
Retransmission refers to the practice of cable operators pulling down a broadcaster's free over-the-air signal and then retransmitting that signal to subscribers' homes along with channel guide information.
Despite continuing negotiations, KMBC-ABC and KCWE-CW, indicated on December 31 they would not authorize Sunflower Broadband to retransmit their signals after midnight that day, said Patrick Knorr, chief operating officer for Sunflower Broadband and The World Company.
"We've enjoyed a good relationship with KMBC. We are disappointed KMBC is choosing to deprive our customers of continuing to receive KMBC as well as depriving their advertisers of reaching those customers, " Knorr said.
Knorr said he was personally disappointed that KMBC did not give Sunflower Broadband more time to properly notify its customers of the change.
Sunflower Broadband has reached agreements with all other local stations that allow continued carriage of their signals into 2009, including Kansas City stations WDAF-FOX, KCTV-CBS, KSMO-My Network, KPXE-Ion, KMCI-38 (the) Spot, KSHB-NBC and KCPT-PBS and Topeka stations including WIBW-CBS, KSNT-NBC, KTWU-PBS and KTKA-ABC.
Subscribers can get more information about this change and answers to commonly asked questions on Sunflower Broadband's Web site: www.sunflowerbroadband.com.
Sunflower Broadband is an independent multi-service operator that provides digital cable television, high-speed cable modem Internet access, and local and long distance telephone services to over 30,000 households in Lawrence and surrounding communities.
Named Independent Cable Operator of the year in 2003, Sunflower Broadband was one of the first cable companies to give customers a 100% all-digital channel line-up.
Sunflower Broadband operates its own local news and information channel with local news broadcasts and award winning locally originated programming. Its reporting team is part of a converged news partnership with the Lawrence Journal-World's print and on-line news operations.
Sunflower Broadband is a division of The World Company, a news and media communications company headquartered in Lawrence, Kansas.
Comments