Disney cable nets and ABC-owned stations were still on Time Warner
Cable and Bright House systems Thursday morning.
The contract deadline expired Wednesday night, but a Time Warner Cable
spokesperson said the two sides were still talking and the programming was
still on the air.
There were signs Sunday (Aug. 29) that the two had made major
progress in their often-heated negotiations, with a source saying the
"major issues" had been resolved.
The FCC has been monitoring the talks. It was put on notice by
some powerful legislators last fall that it was consumer-unfriendly for
stations or networks to go dark on cable systems during retrans impasses. FCC
Chairman Juilus Genachowski pledged to look into it, which has included
collecting comment on the petition by TWC and other MVPDs to open a rulemaking
on possible changes.
Those would include standstill agreements to keep signals on
during impasses as well as outside arbitration.
