CBS Corp. and Time Warner resumed negotiations after a longstanding dispute regarding transmission fees, which resulted in Time Warner dropping CBS programming in several large U.S. markets, including New York, Dallas and Los Angeles for the past seven days, Money Watch reported.
Time Warner pulled CBS' programming last week after the two sides failed to agree on higher fees. Both sides have argued the other has been acting unreasonably.
"Until now, CBS's record of good-faith, successful retransmission consent negotiations was perfect ... while Time Warner Cable's record is littered with many public disputes," said CBS executive vice president Martin Franks. ""Perhaps their real aim here is to use those outdated terms to hamstring our ability to do business with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus and other new entrants that pose a new competitive threat to their former, cozy, unchallenged monopoly status. CBS is not going to become Time Warner Cable's accomplice in trying to throttle those new services."
In response, Bobby Amirshahi said in a statement, "we categorically deny that we are trying to keep CBS from doing business with any new entrant. Both our expired and proposed agreements with CBS place no restriction on their ability to sell all of their product to Netlix, Amazon, Intel or any other entity, or continue to give all of their best content away for free online, as they have to date."
Despite the simmering disageements, analysts expect the two sides to hash out their disagreements by early fall when both the NFL season and the fall sitcom season begin, meaning greater profits for both sides.
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