UPDATE 3-CBS and Time Warner reach fresh broadcast deal
(Adds comments from Moonves)
NEW YORK, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable (TWC.N) extended a deal to carry CBS Corp's (CBS.N) television stations, CBS said on Tuesday, avoiding what could have been another heated industry dispute.
CBS did not disclose details of the agreement, but it comes just days after sister company Viacom Inc (VIAb.N) threatened to pull its cable channels from Time Warner's 13 million homes because of a disagreement over a separate deal.
The Time Warner-Viacom dispute was eventually resolved but underscored the rising tensions between networks, which provide programming, and cable operators, which transmit that programming into living rooms around the country.
CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves has made new broadcast deals a priority, specifically insisting that he wants cable operators to pay CBS for the right to carry its stations in what are known as retransmission deals. In the past, deals involving cash payments were rare.
In an interview, Moonves declined to comment on the particulars of the deal with Time Warner Cable, other than to say, "We're very pleased with the results" of the deal, which runs through 2013.
Later Tuesday, during a presentation at a Citi Investment Research conference, Moonves told investors that terms of the agreement are "in the neighborhood that we want them to be" and the deal should "set a template" for other arrangements with cable operators.
It wasn't immediately clear, however, whether Time Warner Cable would explicitly pay cash for the right to carry the CBS stations -- a contentious issue in the industry.
But a source familiar with the deal said CBS would receive payments from premium fees that Time Warner Cable will pay to carry Showtime, a CBS cable network that features movies and original series. Time Warner Cable will also run advertisements on some CBS stations as part of the deal, another source said.
While CBS has previously reached around 25 deals with smaller to mid-size cable companies, until now it has not announced a deal with one of the major cable operators.
It still needs to work out agreements with a number of the other big operators, including Charter Communications Inc CHTR.O, Cablevision Systems Corp (CVC.N) and Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O).
Moonves, in the interview, said active discussions were taking place with some of those companies.
"Obviously, getting a company the size of Time Warner and the power of Time Warner to do a deal that is satisfactory for us and for them is a major accomplishment," he said.
CBS has been at the forefront of a broader push by broadcasters to get paid by cable operators that carry their stations.
Still, the issue has been largely sidestepped. Cable operators have held the line on not paying broadcasters for TV stations but offset that by raising the rates they are willing pay broadcasters to carry their cable networks. Continued...
