Late
Night
Friday, May 5th
llpm-2am
at the
at the
Rec Center
Food, ref reshments and prizes!
Get your f riends to wrestle in a sumo suit!
Fun Includes:
^600
ABCs
stations
dumped
By David Bauder
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — In an escalating
corporate dispute, ABC was
blacked out in the homes of 3.5
million Time Warner cable cus
tomers around the country Mon
day — just as the “sweeps” peri
od was beginning and Regis
Philbin was about to quiz celebri
ties on “Who Wants to Be a Mil
lionaire.”
Instead of ABC programming,
Time Warner customers saw a
message saying, “Disney has tak
en ABC away from you” on the
channel that normally carries
WABC-TV in New York.
Around the country, the only
way many viewers could see
ABC shows was the old-fash
ioned way — by disconnecting
the cable and rigging up an anten
na — or finding a friend with a
satellite dish.
The Walt Disney Co., ABC’s
corporate parent, is fighting over
how much money Time Warner
must compensate Disney for the
right to carry some of its cable
channels.
The affected customers were in
seven markets served by ABC
owned television stations. About
1.5 million were in the New York
City area, 665,000 in Houston
and 440,000 in Raleigh-Durham,
N.C.
Smaller numbers of customers
in the Los Angeles; Philadelphia;
Toledo, Ohio; and Fresno, Calif.,
markets also lost service.
The blackout was particularly
ill-timed for ABC, America’s top
rated broadcaster. Its most popu
lar show, “Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire,” began its first
celebrity week Monday. Viewers
who saw the opening night of the
miniseries “Arabian Nights” on
Sunday risked missing the con
clusion.
In the coming weeks, ABC is
airing the Kentucky Derby, the
Daytime Emmy Awards and vir
tually all of the season finales of
its regular series.
Disney appealed for help from
the Federal Communications
Commission on Monday.
Each side angrily blamed the
other for the blackout, and each
said FCC law was on its side:
Time Warner said it was against
the law to carry a station without
a transmission deal, while ABC
said a cable operator cannot stop
airing a broadcast station during
a sweeps period.
The sweeps, a period when rat
ings are used to set local advertis
ing rates, began Thursday and
runs until May 24.
The two sides had no negotia
tions scheduled but were to meet
with FCC staff members late
Monday.
Preston Padden, executive vice
president of governmental rela
tions at Disney, said it was a
“damnable lie” to blame Disney
for pulling the plug.
“These people are arrogant ma
nipulators,” Padden said. “Some
deranged individual has de
prived all of these people of
ABC.”
Disney had offered a series of
deadline extensions after the
original national transmission
deal expired Dec. 31. The most
recent deadline, offered in
March, expired at 12:01 a.m. on
Monday.