Except for the coverage in trade magazines, this blog, and newspapers in the areas that have been directly affected, the battle between Nexstar Broadcasting and Cox and Cable One, has flown under the national media radar.
Not any more.
The business section of today's USA Today explores the situation, which has shown no signs of abating and, in fact, seems destined to grow worse over the next several months.
The national newspaper said that the battle between broadcasters and cable companies threatens to take CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox off cable systems across the nation.
"Such blackouts are already happening," the article said. "Since January, a flap between Nexstar Broadcasting and two cable companies has left about 170,000 cable subscribers in Texas, Louisiana and Missouri without several network affiliates."
That, of course, includes Joplin, where the ABC affiliate, KODE, and the NBC affiliate KSNF, were pulled off Cable One by Nexstar Broadcasting and Mission Broadcasting.
The article goes over many of the same points that have been mentioned over and over again in this blog. Duane Lammers of Nexstar tells why the broadcasters should be paid for their content. Representatives of the cable companies tell why they should not be.
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearings on the situation, the article said. The cable companies are trying to get the right to carry a broadcast signal from another town if it cannot agree to a contract with the local station. For instance, Cable One in Joplin would be able to negotiate to get the ABC and NBC signals from Tulsa or Kansas City or somewhere else.
Viewers of the Fox and CBS stations in Springfield can expect to see the battle reach that city at the end of the year. Lammers is quoted in the USA today article as saying, "We have intention to remove our stations in all markets if we have to."
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