Disney vs Time-Warner: Arguing Over Your Money

by srr50 on Jul 19, 2010 9:33 PM CDT

With yet another standoff looming over cable fee rights, Disney (ABC/ESPN) and Time Warner Cable have decided to go public with their argument over who is to blame for your rising cable bill.

The agreement for Time Warner to air the Disney-owned properties (including all the ESPN channels as well as ABC) ends September 2nd. Negotiations over just how much TWC should pay for each channel per subscriber has turned nasty, with each side putting up websites to push their side of the story.

Time Warner has its website which says 40 cents of every consumer dollar already goes to programmers.

Meanwhile, Disney counters with its own website that says that TWC isn't being fair in negotiations and if you suddenly lose your Monday Night Football or ESPN's slate of college games on September 2nd, don't blame Disney.

Of course the bottom line is eventually going up for both sides. Right now the average cost of cable per month is $75 across the U.S.

Consumers are already paying for each of the cable outlets on their service, whether you watch them or not, usually just pennies per month. For instance the Food Channel costs distributors about 8 cents per month right now.

ESPN, the Big Dog in this game, is getting on average $4.10 per subscriber per month, which is why they can pay billions to the SEC and outbid everyone else for the BCS. That monthly stipend is easily the highest payout for any channel.

In order to help for pay for new programming such as the BCS, ESPN would like to charge carriers $5 a month for each subscriber.

Both sides know how this will end -- usually with a last-minute agreement to "save" consumers from having some of their favorite channels struck off the cable. This current fight is just to see who can do the best job of damage control over rising rates.

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This just happened a year or two back in Austin with a local station and TWC. I don’t remember if it was the ABC, CBS, or NBC affiliate, but it actually went off the air for at least a couple of weeks that I recall.

Either way, these rich, elitist, douche bags don’t care about the rising cost of your cable bill. They’ll both get a piece of that increase. The only debate they have is who is going to look like they care more about your rising cost, and how they are perceived to have tried to stop the hike. I would imagine that while debating they wink and snicker at one another, knowing full well neither will really be affected.

by thestos on Jul 19, 2010 10:12 PM CDT reply actions

I’d be willing to spend $10/channel that I actually watch on cable, I would still save money on my bill.

by dick on Jul 19, 2010 10:57 PM CDT reply actions

Why are these pissing matches always between cable companies and the networks. I don’t really ever remember one involving Dish Network or Direct TV? Do they just keep their spats out of the media?

by kevwun on Jul 20, 2010 8:08 AM CDT reply actions

Love the pic

by Matt Cotcher on Jul 20, 2010 11:02 AM CDT reply actions

DirecTV and Comcast battled over Versus. It was off for about seven months, IIRC.

by Bob in Houston on Jul 20, 2010 12:35 PM CDT reply actions

Don’t even try to take Scipio’s Spike TV away. Human Skewers.

by Drew Dunlevie on Jul 20, 2010 2:26 PM CDT reply actions

thestos: it was with KXAN, the NBC affiliate.

And TW almost went to the mattresses with Viacom (Comedy Central, among others) not too long after that.

by kuoirad on Jul 20, 2010 4:14 PM CDT reply actions

Time Warner is for suckers. I’ve been enjoying the NFL Network in Uverse for a couple of years now. Still no sign of it on Time Warner.

by The Tres Leches on Jul 20, 2010 8:56 PM CDT reply actions

These sorts of battles remind me of QUEST FOR FIRE where the guy is trussed up watching his captors make stew out of the arm they hacked off of him.

by thebeeve on Jul 21, 2010 10:24 AM CDT reply actions

Can’t get Uverse where I live and TWC doesn’t have an agreement with ESPN3, either. Take away my College Gameday and I will get medieval.

by RRR on Jul 21, 2010 12:58 PM CDT reply actions

I think this is all bs… TW trying to get us to believe that they only get paid .06 of every dollar, give me a break… there’s another cable company here in corpus christi,tx called grande communications and they don’t have these issues not to mention that they are cheaper… you pay like 30 dollars for digital service which beats TW by far and they have phone and internet as well and if u bundle all three its like 70 dollars compared to 150 for TW and I have never heard of any rivaling feuds with dish or directv they both offer service for under 25 dollars and TW charges 25 for basic, 45 for expanded basic which only adds like 10 more channels to the basic and than over 50 dollars plus for digital service cable, so if anything I think its TW not wanting to offer better service for a cheaper price…TW should just roll on outta here and let the good known companies such as att, directv, and dish network, offer these services… I used to be a TW customer and was supposed to be paying only 100 dollars a month for bundled services, but that was not true at all… I was appauled that my bills were coming out to 300 dollars a month… I mean they added all kinds of service charges that you can imagine.. so I just let the service go and still have not payed the last bill I owe.. All I can say is shame on you TW trying to raise your prices even more especially in an economy like this, people don’t need yalls bullsh*t !!!!

by Juan on Jul 30, 2010 4:10 AM CDT reply actions