New Orleans station, cable company wrangling

NEW ORLEANS – A dispute between the city’s CBS-TV affiliate and a major cable television provider is threatening to leave 185,000 subscribers with no easy way to see Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Atlanta-based Cox Communications Inc., which operates cable systems in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and St. Charles parishes, and WWL-TV have been involved in protracted negotiations over carrying WWL’s signal both the analog and high-definition versions _ as well as a 24-hour news channel produced for cable by WWL.
The question pending Wednesday was whether Cox would pull the three channels at midnight Thursday when the current retransmission agreement expires. Under federal law, cable providers must have such pacts with local stations.
Although much smaller in scope, the fee fight is similar to one between cable operator Mediacom Communications Corp. and station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group. About three weeks ago, Sinclair pulled 22 of its stations from Mediacom cable systems in 13 states, an action that left more than 2 million cable viewers without at least one local station.
Nationwide, television stations, which are spending heavily to covert to high-definition, are looking for new revenue in the face of competition from an ever-expanding competitive lineup of media.
The New Orleans-area case involves WWL’s high-definition signal for which the station, owned by Dallas-based Belo Corp., wants payments from Cox to retransmit.
With just hours left before the current pact expired, Cox spokesman Brad Grundmeyer said negotiations were continuing Wednesday.
In an online message to its customers, Cox said WWL wants “exorbitant fees for a television channel that is otherwise available for free,” a payment that would drive up customer costs.
WWL general manager Bud Brown, though, said the proposed fee for the high-definition channel would amount to less than 1 cent per subscriber each month. Brown said WWL had spent $8 million to establish the high-definition channel three years ago.
“I don’t think it’s unfair or unrealistic to expect someone who is going to resell your signal to pay you some consideration for that signal,” Brown said.
Brown said WWL had offered to provide the analog signal and the news channel for free in a separate package while negotiations continued over the high-definition channel, but Cox refused. Cox called that offer “like buying a flashlight and having to buy a $30,000 bulb to make it work.”
As far as Sunday’s big game goes, Brown said Cox “bears the responsibility of not bringing their customers the Super Bowl.”
Cox said it would have switching equipment available so customers could cut off over-the-cable transmissions and receive WWL over the air.