Time Warner Cable and Walt Disney Co. have signed a long-term contract that will keep the Disney Channel, ABC Family and ESPN channels on the air for Time Warner's 2.1 million customers in the Carolinas.

The two media giants announced their contract this afternoon, following a weeklong public display of finger-pointing as negotiations pushed up against deadlines and flirted with blackouts for millions of customers across the country.

The deal means that Time Warner will carry several new channels, including Disney Junior, ESPN3.com, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater and expanded services in California and New York.

Time Warner Cable and Walt Disney Co. agreed to keep ABC, ESPN and other channels on the air as the two companies continued negotiations past a midnight deadline.

The media companies are trying to reach a new contract and avoid blackouts for Time Warner Cable customers, but haven't come to terms on a new deal. Their existing contract expired at midnight.

"We continue to negotiate - there should be no programming interruption while the negotiations continue," Time Warner Cable spokesman Keith Poston wrote in an e-mail this morning. "Stay tuned."

The fight between the Triangle's cable-TV provider and Walt Disney, the owner of ESPN, ABC 11 and other channels, is coming down to the wire.

Time Warner Cable and Disney officials have been in negotiations for months, but haven't agreed to terms of a new contract. If they don't reach a deal by Wednesday, the spat could lead to blackouts for millions of cable subscribers across the country -- just in time for football season and the new fall-TV lineup.

In today's News & Observer, Time Warner Cable ran a full-page ad blaming Disney for the blackout threat.

The Triangle's dominant pay-TV provider reported higher second-quarter profit as its signed up more customers for digital TV, Internet and phone service.

New York-based Time Warner Cable, the country's second-largest cable TV company, reported that it earnings $342 million, up from $316 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 5.8 percent to $4.73 billion.

The company has 12.7 million video subscribers in 28 states. That includes about 2.1 million customers in the Carolinas, including 830,000 in the region from Raleigh to the coast.

Time Warner Cable has been experiencing a "significant channel outage" since early this morning due to a software issue.

Time Warner spokesman Keith Poston said customers in the Triangle and Fayetteville are affected. "It's a system issue and we are working as quickly as possible to resolve it."

So if you're seeing a blue screen with a message to call Time Warner Cable, don't bother. They already know about it, and because of heavy call volumes, you'll probably just get a busy signal.

Poston said many customers have already been restored, but not all. At the time, they have no estimate as to when the issue will be fully resolved.

UPDATE 4:59pm: Time Warner Cable reports that most customers have had full service restored and that remaining issues should be resolved this evening. The outages only affected digital cable, so basic cable setups are fine.

UPDATE 10pm: Time Warner Cable says all service is restored.

A News 14 Carolina film crew followed two teams of North Carolina high school students earlier this year, as they built robots for the NC FIRST Robotics competition.

The resulting documentary, which took four months to film, will air Saturday on the local cable news channel.

Officials with the Triangle's largest pay-TV provider and most-watched station need a little more time to hammer out a new contract.

Time Warner Cable's contract with Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting, owner of WRAL-TV, was set to expire June 30. But the two sides couldn't agree on terms by the deadline, so they extended their existing contract an extra 30 days.

If the two media titans can't reach a deal by the end of July, it could lead to programming interruptions for cable viewers. Time Warner Cable has about 2.1 million customers in the Carolinas, including 830,000 in its region that stretches from Raleigh to the coast.

"We've had a good relationship with Capitol for a long time and I'm sure we'll ultimately reach a fair agreement," said Time Warner Cable spokesman Keith Poston. "We just needed some more time."

Time Warner Cable customers can now control their digital home phone service from any Internet-connected computer.

The service called VoiceZone was launched today and allows customers in the Carolinas to change their call settings, set up Caller ID, access their voice mail and control other features through a computer.

The service is being offered to home phone customers at no additional charge. Customers can access the new feature through the "my services" link at www.yourtwc.com.

This update to yesterday's post features a rebuttal comment from a MASN spokesperson.

A reader emailed us to ask why he can't watch the Washington Nationals phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg actually pitch in games broadcast here on ESPN and TBS. Unfortunately, that reader is a Time Warner Cable customer, so he'll likely have to get in his car and drive to D.C. to see that happen.

Because of an ongoing contract dispute between the cable company and MASN, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network that carries Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles baseball games, the games are not available here. (Note: MASN is available on DirecTV and Dish Network).

You've likely heard that Time Warner Cable is changing their entire digital channel lineup starting tomorrow.

But why?

The changes will put cable programming into "blocks," groupings that make more sense for channel surfers (even if initially it's vexing for those of us who have burned way too many brain cells memorizing hundreds of channels the way they are). The changes do not apply to basic cable subscribers, nor will they affect broadcast viewers (those without cable at all).

Here's how the blocks break down for standard definition digital channels: