Super Bowl Update

As most of you know, last week Hearst Television pulled its stations from Time Warner Cable - including Louisville's WLKY and Cincinnati's WLWT - when the cable company wouldn't meet its demands for more retransmission consent money.

TWC then turned around and delivered Nexstar-owned-and-operated stations to its cable customers.  In the Louisville area, CBS viewers see that programming on Rochester, N.Y. station WROC.  Cincinnati-area NBC fans are getting their fix from Terre Haute's WTWO.

Nexstar, as I reported last week, is not at all happy about that.

Indeed, the company is so unhappy about it that they've filed a lawsuit to keep TWC from using its stations in these cities and others.  Adweek reports that Nexstar went to a northern Texas district court, where it sued TWC for copyright infringement and breach of contract.  They're also seeking a restraining order and "other injunctive relief."

The company has also asked the FCC to stop TWC, but thus far, the feds have remained mum on the matter.

For its part, the cable company says what it's doing is perfectly legal and within the terms of its contract with Nexstar. "Time Warner Cable's retransmission of Nexstar's signals is fully authorized by the retransmission consent agreement between the parties," Time Warner Cable said in a statement. "This carriage assures our customers of continued access to the upcoming Olympics coverage and other important programming. We are disappointed that Nexstar is working to assist and expand Hearst's leverage against us and our customers by bringing this suit. We are confident that we are operating within our rights and the law and will continue to fight for our customers against this aggressive and coercive broadcaster behavior."

TWC has taken a hard line on Hearst's demands, and says it'll do the same with other broadcasters when their turns come in the retransmission consent "wars."  The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the cable provider is "tired" of the disputes and wants to protect its customers. "(T)elevision networks can't continue to demand huge price increases and expect us to silently pass those cost increases on to our customers," the company said.