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Waco Tribune-Herald

By Carl Hoover, Waco Tribune-Herald, Texas

Jan. 24--WACO, Texas -- Digital and high-definition television programming from CBS affiliates KTVT in Dallas and KEYE in Austin has replaced that of Waco station KWTX, Channel 10, for Time Warner Cable's HD subscribers in Central Texas.

Thanks to a national agreement between CBS Television and Time Warner Cable -- a deal of which the local CBS affiliate says it was unaware c the cable company will be allowed to use the out-of-market signals.

It was a trump card for Time Warner Cable, which had fought KWTX for months over the station's linkage of retransmission consent for its digital signal with channel position for KWTX's new UPN-Waco digital station, which went on the air at 6:02 p.m. Monday.

For Time Warner Cable Regional Manager Johnny Mankin and Stacy Schmitt, vice president of public affairs for Time Warner Cable Waco, the station switch achieved what the two said was their bottom line.

"We wanted to continue to provide high-quality CBS high-def programming for our customers and we've done that," Schmitt said late Monday.

Although discussions between the cable company and the television station had been heated and pointed in the last few weeks, Mankin thought the two parties will eventually work out an agreement.

"We are going to hopefully resolve this issue," he said. "We're going to do everything within our means and efforts to bring things back to the way they were." For the time being, Time Warner HD service subscribers in Waco will see the Dallas CBS affiliate, while those in Killeen and Temple will receive programming from the Austin affiliate.

Approximately 7,000 of Time Warner Cable's roughly 110,000 Central Texas customers get HD programming. The station switch involves Digital Channel 802 and will not affect KWTX's current channel position on Time Warner's basic service tier.

The news was a bitter pill for Rich Adams, KWTX general manager and regional vice president of Gray Television Inc.

"I've been advised by our attorneys in Washington that Time Warner has a global agreement with the CBS television network and its O&O (owned and operated) stations that says that as long as the stations are significantly viewed + Time Warner is within its rights to import their signals," he said late Monday afternoon.

Adams said to his knowledge, neither the CBS or UPN affiliates were aware of the CBS-Time Warner agreement, adding that it effectively undercut local CBS stations in their negotiations with Time Warner Cable.

"It pulls the rug out from under the affiliates," he noted.

Had CBS informed its affiliates of the understanding between the two corporations, "it would have saved everyone a lot of time and effort," Adams said.

The programming switch occurred at approximately 1:30 a.m. Monday, the latest round in a simmering dispute between the television station and the cable company.

KWTX had picked up UPN broadcast rights in October after Time Warner Cable had carried the primetime network for the past three years.

Though the UPN network offers only two hours' programming on weekday nights, KWTX had built a 24-hour digital station around it with syndicated programming targeting, in part, black viewers.

With Time Warner needing retransmission consent from the Waco station to broadcast its digital signal c and CBS' HD programs c the Waco CBS affiliate had linked its consent to Time Warner placing UPN-Waco on Channel 15 or 16 on its analog tier.

Although Time Warner had broadcast UPN on its Cable Channel 15, the balance of that channel consisted of Time Warner promotions, customer information, occasional Baylor University sports coverage and paid informercials.

Countering it had no room for a new 24-hour analog channel, Time Warner offered instead to put UPN-Waco on its digital tier, which would require interested analog customers to upgrade to the more expensive service.

Waco-area cable company Grande Communications will carry UPN-Waco in its entirety on Cable Channel 15 and smaller Central Texas cable providers will do so as well, Adams said.

While the rhetoric between the two companies had escalated over the last few days, Time Warner customers apparently were not concerned.

Schmitt said only a few customers had called over the weekend, but noted that Time Warner earlier had informed subscribers that it would drop UPN programming after Jan. 22.

At KWTX, Adams estimated 20 to 30 callers had phoned his station for information on how to receive UPN or CBS HD programming.

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