If you’re already sick of the fight between DirecTV and KJZZ 14, you won’t much care for this. The station owners of ABC 4 and CW 30 have announced that their retransmission agreements with both Broadweave and Union Cable, a Wyoming cable company, will expire on January 31 and that no new agreement has been negotiated. Odds are that the stations, like so many others, are probably asking for a hefty increase in retransmission fees to make up for sagging ad revenue, a cost that either the service provider has to eat or pass on to you. The broadcaster is urging viewers to call both companies to “encourage” them to sign new agreements.
Personally, I think it’s kind of silly for stations to be picking these fights. Viewers still signed up for satellite before they carried local channels and just used an over-the-air antenna to pick them up. Most viewers now also have the option of using their high-speed Internet connection to catch up on their favorite shows, usually with fewer (or no) commercials. Most of these fights, however, end up in service provider capitulation and higher bills for all of us. I hope Broadweave and Union Cable have their best negotiators on this one.
