Time Warner Cable hopes to make a big splash in Orlando with a new name and an advertising campaign next month.
But a lot of that feel-good stuff will be lost if the company is still at odds with the Sunshine Network. The sports channel was yanked off the cable-TV system at midnight Dec. 31 after the two companies couldn’t agree on pricing for a new contract.
Both sides were talking last week and a settlement seemed closer than it had in some time.
The impasse with Sunshine happened just as Advance/Newhouse Communications took over the local cable system. And the new operator’s reputation? Ironically, it’s known as a stickler for customer service.
Yet Advance/Newhouse is not even involved in the negotiations with Sunshine. The talks are being handled by Time Warner, now a minority partner in the cable system. But, it controls all the programming issues.
Still, why hasn’t the chairman of Advance/Newhouse picked up the phone and demanded that this thing be fixed?
Since January, sports fans have had a front-row seat to a boxing match between two mammoth companies. They would rather be watching their favorite local teams.
In Orlando, Sunshine has the rights to much of the Orlando Magic’s basketball season, as well as games from the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida and Florida State. .
It’s not as if cable-TV customers have much choice. Time Warner serves 1.7 million homes stretching from Orlando to Tampa Bay. Save for a few competitive areas, it’s the only cable game in town. And it’s a lucrative operation, with projected profit of $267 million this year.
No telling how much good will both Time Warner and Sunshine have lost in recent weeks. One critic in an e-mail described the mess as a “juvenile contest” and said customers were getting a “raw deal.” He went on to ask for the addresses of the “head bozos in this debacle.”
There have been more tangible hits, too.
Sunshine Network has lost advertising. The network also is out about $1 million in affiliate fees it normally would have collected from Time Warner.
As for the cable company, it has lost customers to competing satellite services that still carry Sunshine. DirecTV took advantage of the hole in Time Warner’s programming last month, hiring a plane to fly over Raymond James Stadium during a Tampa Bay Bucs game. It carried a banner with a toll-free number for the service.
In the meantime, Time Warner has kept the wraps on the new name for its local operation so it can generate lots of buzz when it is revealed. The company also has said it will offer some new services when the change occurs.
The cable operator would please a lot of people if it just went back to one of its old services — the Sunshine Network.
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