Posted:
14:37:49 on July 10 2001
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Enterprise | www.stenterprise.com
This article appears in today's USA Today, and is the latest chapter in the future of UPN, this time with regard to more specific affiliates. Obviously, ENTERPRISE could be greatly affected by the outcome of these issues.
UPN: AOL abuses its cable power WB rival says giant is diluting local competition
By David Lieberman
USA TODAY
NEW YORK -- UPN officials say that AOL Time Warner is misusing its cable power in a battle that could have far-reaching implications for low-power TV.
The fight involves Time Warner Cable's refusal to carry low-power UPN affiliates in Cincinnati and Syracuse, Rochester and other, smaller communities in northern New York. Rather than carry those stations at no cost, Time Warner is paying to import UPN via satellite from Boston-based superstation WSBK.
''This is another ploy to weaken local competition and UPN, the chief rival to (Time Warner's) WB,'' says David Grant, general manager of WBGT in Rochester.
The fight with the Viacom-owned network raises questions about the future for low-power stations, which depend on cable to reach most viewers. In 1982, the Federal Communications Commission, to promote local broadcasting diversity, offered spectrum for such relatively low-cost, limited-range stations. But they are not covered by federal rules that require cable systems to carry all full-power local stations in a community.
Time Warner says signals from these UPN affiliates are too weak to provide acceptable video and audio. ''We want to carry UPN programming,'' Time Warner Cable's Mike Luftman says. ''This is about negotiating the appropriate terms and getting a high-quality signal.''
The UPN affiliates disagree.
''My transmitter is only 3 miles from the Time Warner (main office),'' says Anthony DiMarcantonio, owner of WLOT in Watertown, N.Y. ''We're providing more than enough'' signal power.
UPN contends economics is the real issue. Of 37 UPN primary affiliates that are low power, 26 are carried on cable. The affiliates say that Time Warner refuses to carry them to cut local ad sales competition for affiliates of WB, Time Warner's broadcast network, and for the cable system itself, which gets ad time on cable channels to sell to local advertisers.
''It's been very clear that Time Warner does not wish to carry any of these low-power stations,'' says UPN Chief Operating Officer Adam Ware. The Cincinnati UPN station, for example, ''has been on for 10 years, has local sports rights and is carried on every other cable system except Time Warner's.''
He says that negotiations with Time Warner ''are at an impasse now.'' As a result, UPN may ask the FCC to find that Time Warner is violating FCC rules giving a local affiliate sole right to the network's programming in its city.
''No one has ever looked at it for low-power stations,'' Ware says.
The network also is looking into whether Time Warner can unilaterally decide to carry the Boston superstation. ''It's astonishing that there's a middleman out there,'' Ware says. ''No one ever envisioned that this would happen.''
