Media Watch: Boob Tube Drama

The ongoing attempts by local NBC affiliate KXAN and Time Warner Cable to portray each other as gouging, lying scum have done little to sway my mother-in-law, who qualifies as a typical cable subscriber. She doesn't care about retransmission fees or must-carry regulations; she simply wants to know if The Office is going to be on Thursday night. "They seem to want to engage my sympathies, and that's not going to happen," she said.

The dispute between KXAN and Time War­ner reached a head last Friday when KXAN disappeared from the Time Warner system, initially replaced by a fascinating tutorial on how to hook up a computer to a TV. Despite the onslaught of smarmy ads and finger pointing, the conflict is fairly simple: LIN TV, owner of KXAN, wants Time Warner systems around the country to pay to retransmit its programming. Everyone agrees the cable systems will pay; the only question is: How much?

No one doubts the issue will be settled soon. Neither can afford the other's absence for long. KXAN can take advertising cuts for a few weeks, but there's no way it wants the dispute to stretch into the November sweeps month. For the station, it would be a nightmare of biblical proportions for the conflict to continue until the Super Bowl – sweet mother of God, no one at KXAN even wants to consider that terrible, terrible possibility.

Yet, cable companies can't afford to play hardball for long, either. Customers will simply switch to satellite providers and telephone companies and never look back. Nobody loves their cable company.

Yet, the result of the dispute has been a smarm fest, with each side lobbing charges at the other, hoping to cast its counterpart as an evildoer out to rape and pillage beloved NBC viewers. Both have been blatantly and shamelessly using their powerful media positions to lobby for their corporate interests, accusing each other of not "working in your interests," as if anybody actually believes cable companies and TV stations are humanitarian operations.

Even the KXAN newsroom was co-opted, as newscasts became a forum for a "commentary" by General Manager Eric Lassberg promoting the station's position. KXAN news doesn't normally run commentaries, and there was no opposing view offered, making the newscast a shill for its corporate parent, a role once unthinkable. Anchor Robert Had­lock, trying to explain the unusual commentary segment, introduced his boss by saying, "We have asked Eric Lassberg for clarification" of the retransmission issue, an obvious, embarrassing fib at a time when newscasts are already straining to maintain their credibility. ("The only reason we felt comfortable was that it was labeled as commentary," Lassberg said.)

But KXAN is hardly alone in pushing the boundaries. Lying is a strong word, but both sides have been going at each other with the zeal of, well, political candidates, racing to slime their opponents with dumbed-down, simplistic rhetoric that only vaguely resembles the truth suggested in Time Warner's irony-free website www.thetruthhurtskxan.com.

War of Words

A quick scorecard on the battle of rhetoric, ranked on a scale of 1 to 10:

Time Warner: Those greedy bastards at KXAN want to charge for their "free" signal.

Of course, that's what broadcasters do – make money with their free signals. Rumor has it they even charge companies to run commercials on the free signals. That's not nearly as smarmy as the cable companies mocking the free signals, considering their business models are based on taking those "free" signals and charging people to see them. Smarm meter: 9.

KXAN: We want "less than a penny a day" per subscriber.

Gosh, a 6-year-old could afford a penny a day! And a 6-year-old can also do the math. Time Warner has 310,000 subscribers in Austin. At a penny a day per subscriber, that's $3,100 a day for 365 days, which adds up to $1.1 million a year. More importantly, all the other network affiliates are going to want similar terms, moving this into the realm of real money for the cable companies. Smarm meter: 7.

Time Warner: We're fighting for our customers.

Time Warner says customers will ultimately pay the fees. Of course, that's easy enough for Time Warner to solve: Don't raise rates. It could also support measures under discussion to allow customers to pay only for groups of channels they want. But cable companies like the bloated payment system, which forces customers to pay for channels they don't want. By arguing that customers will pay for the retransmission fees, cable systems are simply admitting they will stick it to their customers as soon as possible. Smarm meter: 7.

KXAN: Cable systems are not negotiating in good faith.

If by "good faith" KXAN means "not giving in to our demands," that's accurate. Time Warner certainly talked to LIN in recent months; it simply was not telling KXAN what it wanted to hear, which apparently implies bad faith. Smarm meter: 6.

Time Warner: KXAN wants something that nobody else is getting.

Maybe. But broadcasters are already compensated in the form of advertising trade-outs and other considerations, and everyone in the industry acknowledges broadcasters are going to get direct cash payments sooner or later. Cable already pays hefty fees to rebroadcast networks such as ESPN. LIN TV may be a trailblazer, but all the other broadcasters are sure to follow. Smarm meter: 6.

KXAN: Time Warner "removed" the NBC affiliate.

Not quite. LIN could have granted Time Warner a waiver to continue to retransmit the signal while negotiations continue. But then LIN would lose its only bargaining chip, akin to a union agreeing not to strike. Smarm meter: 6.

Time Warner: KXAN's greed is simply going to jack up your cable bill.

Unfortunately for cable, it's no longer 1985. There is actually very real competition these days, despite the millions the cable industry spent lobbying against new services from satellite and phone companies. (And let's just assume they passed on at least some of those costs to their beloved customers.) It would take real cojones for Time Warner to act like it's the good ol' days and raise rates every time the CEO needs a new jet. Damn that competition. Smarm meter: 8.