Hearst Television contracts with Time Warner, Bright House, Insight Cable expired

[LoadStar]

Heads up. Hearst Television's contract with Time Warner, Bright House, and Insight Cable systems has now expired.

They've extended carriage out under the current contract through July 9, but Hearst is stating that negotiations are "at an impasse" with all three systems.

If negotiations aren't complete by July 9 (and Hearst indicates that they are not ongoing at this time) Hearst stations will likely be blacked out.

[starbreiz]

I hadn't been following this. Hearst has its hands in a lot of stations, do you have more specifics on which are affected? What about ones it only owns parts of like ESPN? Maybe more details for folks who aren't actually in the media industry?

[LoadStar]

Originally Posted by starbreiz

I hadn't been following this. Hearst has its hands in a lot of stations, do you have more specifics on which are affected? What about ones it only owns parts of like ESPN? Maybe more details for folks who aren't actually in the media industry?

This is strictly their "over the air" stations. A quick check indicates that at least the following stations are affected:

WMUR (Manchester, NH) - Time Warner
WMOR (Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL) - Bright House
WXII (Greensboro/Winston-Salem, NC) - Time Warner
WLKY (Louisville, KY) - Insight
KMBC/KCWE (Kansas City, MO) - Time Warner
WISN (Milwaukee, WI) - Time Warner
WLWT (Cincinnati, OH) - Time Warner and Insight
KETV (Omaha, NE) - Time Warner
KITV (Honolulu, HI) - Time Warner

I can't guarantee that's a complete list, but those are the stations I saw had posted a notice on their webpages about the dispute.

[sieglinde]

Oh, so they are specific stations not things like AMC. OK.

[LoadStar]

The extension expires tonight, and thus far they have yet to restart negotiations. Hearst will almost certainly black out the above mentioned stations at midnight tonight.

[LoadStar]

The Hearst-Time Warner/Bright House fight is over, and the stations are back on cable as of tonight.