CBS Extends Negotiations Period With Time Warner Cable Until Friday On Fees

(RTTNews) - Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) announced Monday that CBS Corp. (CBS-A, CBS) has agreed to an extension until 5 pm ET om Friday, August 2, while negotiations continue for a settlement of significantly hiked and unprecedented program fees. CBS had earlier threatened to black out its channels in some of Time Warner Cable's markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.

The stalemate continues as CBS wants Time Warner Cable to pay 600 percent more to buy CBS programming directly from them in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, where they own TV stations. Time Warner normally pays to buy the same CBS programming from other independent companies that own local TV stations in dozens of other cities across the country.

"That's wrong. It's unreasonable to expect our customers to pay a 600% premium in a handful of cities, and so we are negotiating very hard for a reasonable price," Time Warner Cable said.

Time Warner Cable stated that CBS President and CEO Les Moonves doesn't seem to care about customers' budgets or the going rates for CBS programming. He normally says 'the sky is the limit" when talking about the price he thinks he deserves for his CBS stations, and he clearly means it. He has always been outspoken about the programming fees he believes he deserves.

Time Warner Cable noted that it is going to continue to negotiate and hope to come to a reasonable resolution before its deadline, so that its customers don't have to endure yet another broadcaster blackout. Broadcasters have already hit customers with 84 broadcaster blackouts in the past 18 months.

In the event of a blackout if CBS continues to make these unreasonable demands, Time Warner Cable noted that customers in New York:WCBS, Los Angeles:KCBS and KCAL (Ind), Dallas:KTVT-CBS and KTXA (Ind), Boston:WBZ-CBS and WSBK (Ind), Pittsburgh:KDKA-CBS and WPCW-CW, Chicago:WBBM-CBS, Detroit:WKBD-CW, and Denver:KCNC-CBS may be affected.

Earlier in the day, Time Warner Cable announced that it has been forced to remove several of its networks and broadcast stations from its customers' lineups. As of midnight eastern, Time Warner Cable customers in New York City, Dallas and Los Angeles will no longer receive their local CBS broadcast stations.

Additionally, Time Warner Cable noted that it has been forced to remove Showtime, TMC, Flix and Smithsonian from its lineups across the country. The company added that it offered to pay reasonable increases, but CBS's demands are out of line and unfair - and they want Time Warner Cable to pay more than others pay for the same programming.

In Tuesday's regular trading session, TWC is currently trading at $113.46, down $1.77 or 1.54% on a volume of 0.47 million shares, and CBS is trading at $52.35, down $0.04 or 0.07% on a volume of 0.61 million shares.