CBS Calls Time Warner Cable’s Proposed Compromise a “Sham”

NEW YORK: CBS Corporation has dismissed a proposal by Time Warner Cable’s CEO, Glenn Britt, to sell its channel on an a la carte basis, calling it a "sham" and an "empty gesture."

Britt penned a letter to CBS’s CEO, Les Moonves, that said he would resume broadcasting programming if stations were made available individually to customers. Subscribers could choose which channels they wanted, each at a separate price. The money, he said, would go directly to CBS. "Although those terms are not ideal to CBS or TWC, and would leave TWC and our customers without the digital rights that CBS has provided to others, since both parties have lived under those terms productively for many years, we believe we should continue to live with them in the interest of restoring CBS immediately for the benefit of consumers," Britt said in his letter.

The letter also urged CBS to take action regarding the blocking of CBS.com content from TWC’s high-speed Internet customers, regardless of whether it accepts or rejects the proposals. "Regardless of the other issues between us, it is surely beyond the pale for you to subject these Internet customers to blocking of content that is made available for free to all others. This is especially so given that CBS uses free public airwaves to broadcast that content and has public interest obligations that it is plainly flouting. In addition, this conduct is abhorrent in that CBS is using this blocking to punish TWC’s Internet customers across the country, including millions of consumers in cities where we continue to carry CBS on our cable systems through agreements with other CBS-affiliated stations; is blocking customers of other multichannel providers, including Direct TV, with whom CBS has no dispute; and is apparently blocking customers of certain other ISP’s, to which TWC provides wholesale Internet services."

In response, the CBS statement said: "Today’s so-called proposal is a sham, a public relations vehicle designed to distract from the fact that Time Warner Cable is not negotiating in good faith. Anyone familiar with the entertainment business knows that the economics and structure of the cable industry doesn’t work that way and isn’t likely to for quite some time. In short, this was an empty gesture from a company that is expert at them."