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Fox Returns Fire on Time Warner Cable Over Its Roll Over or Get Tough Campaign

Phillip Dampier December 21, 2009 Time Warner Cable, Video 3 Comments

Fox has returned fire on Time Warner Cable’s Roll Over or Get Tough campaign, saying the cable company isn’t playing fair and viewers in several major cities could lose access to Fox programming because of it.

Fox-owned television stations have already begun warning viewers if Time Warner Cable doesn’t reach an agreement with the stations by December 31st, they could be removed from the cable lineup. Fox issued this statement regarding their ongoing negotiations with Time Warner Cable:

For the past nine months, Fox has attempted to negotiate in good faith with Time Warner Cable. Our position in these negotiations is entirely reasonable – we are simply asking for fair compensation for the impressive value our Fox programming offers.

While negotiations are ongoing, we have a responsibility to prepare our viewers for the very likely possibility that Time Warner Cable may choose to no longer carry Fox Broadcasting, Fox Cable and Fox regional sports programming. Toward that end, today we launched a marketing campaign notifying Time Warner Cable subscribers that they may lose access to American Idol, 24, House and some of the best live event sports programming on TV (including most BCS Bowl games and NFL on Fox). The campaign consists of print advertising, TV spots, a call-in number (1-866-KEEP-FOX), and a website, keepfoxon.com.

Going forward, we will continue actively negotiating with Time Warner Cable in hopes of reaching a fair agreement and will attempt to keep our viewers informed of the situation every step of the way.

Fox has also launched a hard-hitting ad airing on several affected Fox stations:

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TWC Isnt Playing Fair Ad Fox.flv

Fox is running this ad in many cities where retransmission consent agreements with Time Warner Cable are set to expire December 31st.

Fox stations in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, Detroit, Orlando and Tampa are at risk of removal from Time Warner Cable lineups if an agreement is not reached before year’s end.

Currently there are 3 comments on this Article:

Michael Chaney says:

December 21, 2009 at 5:46 pm

Ahhh…..sounds like the same BS we went through last year with TWC and NBC. I guess it’s time to bust out the antenna and go buy a Tivo.
Tim says:

December 22, 2009 at 9:57 am

“For the past nine months, Fox has attempted to negotiate in good faith with Time Warner Cable. Our position in these negotiations is entirely reasonable – we are simply asking for fair compensation for the impressive value our Fox programming offers.”

No wonder cable rates keep climbing and climbing.They offer their content for free OTA but cable, basically the customer, has to pay for it? I hope there is a day of reckoning soon for all of these content providers. This is getting really ridiculous.
Paul K says:

December 30, 2009 at 1:01 pm

I don’t know if this is the case for everyone, but at least, here in Rochester, NY, it appears that they’re only dropping the Fox cable stations, not the broadcast station. Here is the list of stations that will be dropped, if this goes through:

• Fuel
• Fox Reality Channel
• Speed Channel
• Fox Soccer Channel
• Fox Sports World Espanol
• FX

Now I’m all for getting tough and sticking it to the man and whatever, but only if the situation justifies it. What bothers me about this campaign is that I haven’t seen any real numbers as to how much the hikes are, in both dollars and percentages. For all I know, TW is just being cheap and trying to stick it to Fox by saying that it’s a huge hike. So far, they haven’t actually quantified how much would be passed along to everyone in their bills if they decided to “Roll Over” and not “Get Tough”. As near as I can tell, this whole thing is just one big corporate p*ssing match where they’re pitting one company’s uninformed customers against the others.

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