Time Warner Cable said this evening that it reached a contract agreement that will allow the cable company to continue showing Sinclair's CW22 and MyRDC signals in the Triangle and nationwide. Popular Sinclair shows include “Gossip Girl,” “Nikita” and “Vampire Diaries.”
Sinclair, based in Maryland, had threatened to pull its programs from Time Warner Cable if the two sides could not reach an agreement by midnight tonight. The truce is temporary and gives both sides until Jan. 14 to continue negotiating. At the very least it frees up the lawyers and accountants from working on New Year's Eve.
We apologize if this plot line sounds like a re-run. This all-too-familiar script has played out numerous times in the past over contract negotiations. The programmers accuse the cable guys of corporate greed. The cable providers say they can't pay higher fees for the right to show the programming because they would be forced to raise their customers' rates to cover the higher costs.
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), hydralic fracturing (or "fracking"), public utilities (both electric and natural gas) and health care. His beat includes Progress Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Biogen Idec and others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or