Disney-Cablevision Fight Is Far From the Last

By Andrew Gauthier 

The New York Times

The tentative agreement between The Walt Disney Company and Cablevision for WABC is just the latest in a string of recent feuds between media giants over transmission fees.

Though this fight had pit Disney against Cablevision, the issue is bigger than those two companies, and it promises to come up again and again as other cable providers and stations renegotiate their contracts. “We’re going to see more and more of these disputes,” Derek Baine, a cable industry analyst for SNL Kagan, said Sunday.

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Cable providers have long paid substantial fees to carry cable-only channels like ESPN and TNT, but have paid essentially nothing to carry traditional broadcast channels–a situation that the cash-starved broadcast networks have wanted to change. More…

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