North Carolina's Senator Sam Ervin opened the Watergate Hearings on May 17, 1973, and for the rest of the summer, the hearings dominated the TV schedule.

The three commercial television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) all broadcast the hearings live for the first five days. After that, they took turns providing live coverage, resulting in 319 hours of televised coverage by the time the hearings closed on August 7.

N.C. Sen. Sam Ervin listens to Rufus Edmisten, deputy chief counsel of the Watergate committee, (AP file photo)

As he anticipated the beginning of the hearings, Ervin credited the press for their role exposing in the Watergate affair.

Ervin praised investigative reporting for bringing he scandal to the public's attention. "The press of America deserves the thanks of the people for what it has done." --The News & Observer, 5/17/1973

The voice of public radio's political coverage in North Carolina is going commercial.

Laura Leslie, who has covered state politics and government at WUNC for more than six years, is joining WRAL as a multimedia reporter. Her last day at WUNC is today, and she'll start at WRAL on Friday.

In her new role, Leslie will continue coverage of the legislature and state politics. Leslie said she'll focus mostly on expanding WRAL's online coverage, including webcasts and podcasts, as the General Assembly prepares to return to Raleigh.

"I'll be telling the same stories, but I'll have new ways to tell them," she said. "The news business is changing and legislative coverage needs to change with it. I see it as an immense opportunity."

Recruiting Leslie signals that WRAL, owned by Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting, is seeking to beef up its legislative coverage as Republicans control the General Assembly for the first time since 1898.

Time Warner Cable this morning characterized its business partner, Sinclair Broadcasting, as a liar and scoundrel in an escalating public brawl over programming fees.

The show-stopper behind the nasty rhetoric is a contract dispute over how much Time Warner should pay to carry Sinclair's CW22 and MyRDC signals in 2011. Popular shows include "Gossip Girl," "Nikita" and "Vampire Diaries."

Sinclair has threatened to pull its programs at midnight tonight if it can't renew its contract with Time Warner. For its part, Time Warner says that it would be forced to raise its customers' rates to cover Sinclair's proposed price hikes.

"Sinclair is threatening to take its stations off the air if Time Warner Cable does not agree to its demands for larger fees," the cable company said in a press release.

Time Warner Cable rejected the latest offer from Sinclair Broadcasting, and is refusing further negotiations, Sinclair officials said today.

The escalating feud over programming fees will mean that Time Warner Cable customers could lose the CW22 and MyRDC signals as of midnight Friday. Popular CW shows include "Gossip Girl," "Nikita" and "Vampire Diaries."

Sinclair proposed a fee increase that averaged about 10 cents per subscriber, but officials said today that Time Warner "refused to provide a financial counter-proposal, effectively ending negotiations."

Time Warner responded that Sinclair's statement is false.

"Time Warner Cable has at no time told Sinclair that we were terminating negotiations," Time Warner wrote in its own statement today. "We remain open and willing to negotiate a reasonable agreement for our customers and have no intention of declaring negotiations to be at an end, even in the event that Sinclair decides to pull their signals from Time Warner Cable on December 31st."

Among the signs of a new year: a ball (or acorn) dropping, champagne popping and TV titans fighting.

Television broadcasters and pay-TV providers are increasingly at odds over programming fees. With many contracts tied to the calendar year, those disputes tend to flare up as Jan. 1 approaches.

This year's edition pits Time Warner Cable, the Triangle's dominant pay-TV provider, against Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns WLFL, or CW22, and WRDC, or MyRDC. Both sides are warning customers of blackouts when their contract expires at midnight on Dec. 31.

An extended blackout could disrupt fans of popular CW shows such as the Vampire Diaries, Nikita, 90210 and Gossip Girl, left.

Unless you're a political junkie, you probably were relieved when Nov. 3 arrived and the flurry of candidates' TV ads stopped.

Here's a small bit of solace: It could have been a whole lot worse. And a word of warning: It will be in 2012.

The Raleigh-Durham market's political ad saturation in October was 5.85 percent, Nielsen reports. That's well below top markets based on the percentage of political ads, including Cleveland at 23.44 percent, Portland, Ore., at 21.78 percent and Sacramento, Calif., at 21.18 percent.

This market didn't have a major competitive race, since U.S. Sen. Richard Burr stayed ahead in most polls, local TV executives say. That will change in 2012, with races for president and governor.

Is television better than movies these days? We think so!

Check out this article from today's New York Times: Are films bad, or is TV just better?

Wolfpack and Blue Devil fans who buy Internet access from Time Warner Cable may not be able to watch their football teams' home openers live online tomorrow.

N.C. State's game against Western Carolina and Duke University's game against Elon are scheduled to be shown only on ESPN3.com. The games won't be aired on TV. To see live action at home, it's Internet streaming or nothing.

Under a new contract reached late Thursday between Time Warner Cable and Walt Disney Co., which owns ESPN, the ESPN3 website will soon be available to Time Warner Cable customers in this region for the first time.

But because the companies' dispute wasn't resolved until Thursday, Time Warner Cable engineers and programmers may not have enough time to get the system set up by Saturday night, said spokesman Keith Poston.

"We obviously would love to have it available for our subscribers and we're working as fast as we can to make it happen," he said. "I'm sure fans will be disappointed, but it's not something they've had before. This site wasn't available last season."
 

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."

We love our TV.

The Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville market moved up one spot to No. 25 among the nation's biggest television markets, Nielsen reports in its annual ranking.

Fueled by the ongoing population boom, this region expanded 2.1 percent to 1.13 million TV households, putting it just ahead of Baltimore, Indianapolis and San Diego.

The latest ranking puts the region into a new realm. Some national advertisers only buy ads in the top 25 markets. As more start buying ads here, it could boost revenue for local stations but also drive up prices for local advertisers.