There is an interesting piece of reading on the website for Nexstar Broadcasting's station, KAMR in Amarillo, Texas, which is also battling Cable One for retransmission rights. Whereas, Cable One in Joplin has been without Nexstar's KSNF and KODE stations in Joplin since Jan. 1, KAMR was removed from Cable One in Amarillo only about seven weeks ago.
As usual, in a letter to its viewers on the station website, Nexstar officials note that they are David to Cable One's Goliath. "CableOne is owned by one of the most powerful media companies in the United States -- The Washington Post. Ironically, the Washington Post also owns television stations and their broadcast division shares our viewpoint about being compensated for carriage by cable companies."
That does make for a definite conflict of interest...but so does a fact that goes unmentioned. Nexstar Broadcasting, as has been pointed out numerous times in The Turner Report, is owned by ABRY, which also owns WayOutWest, the 13th largest cable system in the United States, and Atlantic Broadband, the 16th largest cable system. That also provides a definite conflict of interest.
I haven't seen any instances of it occurring yet, but what is going to happen when Nexstar's stations contracts with those cable outfits run out. Or are there any Nexstar stations carried by those cable companies?