TLS: Time Warner vs. The Disney Company; or The shape of things to come?

[ Thanks to jeff
Gerhardt for this link. ]

“In an effort to not get so focused about Microsoft and
their trials and tribulations, I think we need to take a look at a
story that may just be as important. In fact if you believe those
people who have participated in our poll, it is “way more
important” than Microsoft.”

“…what happened over the weekend is, Time Warner took ALL of
the Disney owned ABC affiliates off the air on their cable network.
That means that ABC was blocked out of the 3.5 million Timer Warner
subscribers across the United States. Why did this happen? Its
simple, Time Warner owns the cable company and Disney owns the
content. They are in the process of renegotiating their deal. Both
companies desire a better deal. That is cool, that is what free
enterprise is all about, supply and demand. So what is the problem?
“

“The issue revolves around fairness, and each of the parties
evaluation of the plethora of fairness issues now being discussed
by the FCC. Time Warner feels that Disney has been unfair in their
negotiations, and in fact there were rumors last month of Disney
making “back room” threats to pull Disney content. Disney has
complained about Time Warner giving preferential treatment to the
stations owned by Time Warner. It is interesting to note that Time
Warner cable carries EVERY channel created by every subsidiary, to
the exclusion of Disney products, and there is NOTHING wrong with
that. What IS wrong is manipulation of the content. Indeed, The
Disney Channel is part of basic cable service just about everywhere
in the US, except for Time Warner cable. On Time Warner it is a
premium channel, thus putting it in a competitive disadvantage. The
Cartoon Network on the other hand is a different story.”

Complete
Story