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Century, Cantonment Cable Customers Could Lose WEAR 3 In 10 Days
December 21, 2010
Cable television subscribers in Century and Cantonment are just 10 days away from possibly losing WEAR TV 3, the local ABC affiliate.
The current retransmission agreement that allows Bright House Networks to deliver the Sinclair Broadcast Group owned WEAR expires on December 31. That contract is still in the negotiation stage.
“If another agreement is not reached by the end of the year, our programming will no longer be available on their system,” WEAR Operations Manager Joe Smith said.
“Unfortunately, based on the status of the negotiations Sinclair does not believe we are going to be able to reach agreement on an extension of the deal,” according to statement released by Sinclair. “As a result, (Bright House) would no longer be carrying the stations covered by the agreement with Sinclair beginning on January 1, 2011.”
“As a normal part of business operations, our agreements with channels come up periodically for renewal. As a negotiating tactic, sometimes the channel owner threatens to take its channel off of the cable system. While this is an extreme measure, it rarely happens in our markets. Most channel owners stay on and put our mutual customers first,” Bright House said in a statement on their website.
In information aired on WEAR, the station is urging Bright House customers in Century and Cantonment to begin considering other methods to received WEAR 3.
“We are telling them to make plans to receive the station elsewhere, like DIRECTV, Dish Network or over the air with an antenna,” Smith said.
Bright House does not currently carry WEAR sister station WFGX MyTV 35. However, Smith said part of the Sinclair negotiations with Bright House would include adding the station to the cable provider’s lineup.
Comments
14 Responses to “Century, Cantonment Cable Customers Could Lose WEAR 3 In 10 Days”
Such a cliche argument. Other than the silly Christmas parade that WKRG sponsors for some reason, name one story Ch3 has missed that the “Mobile” stations have covered.
This all boils down to greed on the part of Sinclair. These disputes are very commonplace with that company and happen all across the country with every major cable provider including Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable. Customers of satellite providers should not feel safe either. Sinclair routinely has these disputes with DirecTV and Dish Network as well. Sinclair is synonymous with greed. Until 1992 the cable companies did not have to pay the local station owners for including their signals in the cable lineup. After all, since most people either have cable or satellite, wouldn’t the local station WANT to have their channel included in the lineup? But, since 1992 the local station owners have been holding viewers hostage in this annual ritual of demanding higher and higher fees from the cable providers. Naturally those fees get passed right along to customers. If you want to know why your cable rates seem to go up all the time, this would be it!
THAT’S WHY COX CABLE NEEDS TO MOVE ON IN
Ch3 should be paying bright.house to air their racist newscast ! Cop hits a black punk in Seattle Wa.,its breaking news on ch3.Did 3 ever say ’sorry’to Jay. Fl?i know the places in town to avoid ,for the high crime areas..only because i havea scanner:Hear That Morgan !?High crime P’cola=parents,ecso(dave),PNJ,CH-3! IF U DONT KNOW ITS BROKE,U CANT FIX IT!!need p’cola news?=N.Esc.com,10/5/15..radio shack1000ch.trunk:tracker scanner!!!Merry Christmas Everyone!;MikeJ(col.Kurts)
The cable companies keep lowering the service and raising the rates. Next rate increase I go to an antanae! And IF I were to want to watch channel 3 I can just use my emergency antanae.
Really…..who cares about any of this? Simply give the hours you would have spent sitting in front of Channel 3 to reading or listening to music or working around the house.
I quit satellite television 3 years ago because I was tired of the constant fee increases. And I was only paying $40.00 a month. I know people who pay in the $100.00 range! A hundred dollars to watch television! Folks, you don’t have to have pay TV. It ain’t electricity, it ain’t gas and it ain’t water. We don’t miss it at my house.
If everyone would just stop paying, these knuckleheads would lower their prices and increase their services. As long as we keep bellying up to the trough, these companies will keep feeding us slop, and at their prices.
Drop the cable, drop the satellite TV, and do it today. Quit crawling to them and let them come to us for a change.
I believe if you check you will see that it’s not so much the cable companies doing this as it is Sinclair Broadcast Group. It hasn’t been that long ago that they were making announcements about Mediacom customers losing channel 3. How often do you see the other channels in this situation, not very often that I remember. As for quality, I’ve always had better quality with cable than I have with satellite service, I’ve never had a problem with the picture due to heavy rain with cable, but I can’t say that with the satellite systems, not only mine but I’ve also been at friends house that had satellite service during a heavy rain when the picture would fade. I’ll stay with Brighthouse, and if channel 3 is no longer available, then that’s OK, but I wonder if channel 3 is going to give local businesses a cut for not having as large a market without Brighthouse.
Not a big loss. WEAR is the worst station in the area…especially their newscasts. WKRG in Mobile has much better coverage and programming.
Why doesn’t the Cable companies and WEAR get along better than this and why does the Cable companies put their customers thru this every year now? It seems silly now they both are still doing the same crap. Guess all you cable folks need to get Direct TV and forget cable!! You get better service and channel reception, it’s not on the blink like cable is when you get a storm.
I keep waiting for them to name”one of my favorite”showys that I’m going to miss.
To Ch.3 advertisers,if I watch over the “air” i will not patronize those who advertise on Ch.3 tell the T.V. Ch. To get real.
I get ALL my local news from northescambia.com. They have the best coverage for my area.
Goodbye WEAR 3! Never watch it anyways because Channel 5 has better coverage of pensacola news. So it really isn’t a loss…..
This is the same tactic that they play with Mediacom and everyone else! Why is it that only Sinclair/Chnl 3 have these issues? You don’t see the Mobile Stations or any other trying these tactics! Chnl 3 is just about useless anyway! It was bad to watch the Pensacola Christmas Parade be on Chnl 5 out of Mobile and sponsored by them. There were even Mobile advertisers sponsoring the Pensacola parade! Chnl 3 has less local news than the Mobile Stations also! Not really sure why anyone wants Chnl 3 anyway! Guess they got some Desperate Housewives or something that people will die without??!!??!! Chnl 3 is basically a JOKE in my humble opinion….
One would think that if the channel is already free over the air that this would not be that big of an issue with Sinclair. Also, local (and national) advertisers are not going to reach their potential customers. Their advertising dollars will get more expensive because I am positive that Sinclair will not reduce their advertising rates. It is true that some people might switch back and forth from cable to antenna or switch carriers altogether, but I will simply catch my favorite ABC programs and news on the internet.