News Corp (NWS) Plans To Pull Fox From Time Warner Cable
News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) (NASDAQ: NWSA) has announced that it expects to pull its Fox Channels from the Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) system after talks have stalled and the current deal between the two companies is set to expire tomorrow.
"We deeply regret that millions of Fox customers will be deprived of our programming," News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said in a memo released to the company's employees Wednesday afternoon. "We need to receive fair compensation from Time Warner cable to go forward."
The issue had gone all the way to Democratic senator from Massachusetts John Kerry who has implored the two sides not to deprive football fans in major markets like New York and Los Angeles this weekend.
Fox has an exclusive deal for three of college football's Bowl Championship Series game and the Cotton Bowl this weekend and a deal with the National Football League for games in the final weekend of the regular season and the upcoming playoffs.
"Fox isn't looking for fair compensation and we too are prepared to be without the Fox signal," Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley said. "We hope Fox doesn't punish our customer, but that decision is up to them."
UPDATE: In a letter from Chase Carey to Senator John Kerry, the News Corp. COO has said that he is "concerned" that a fair pact wasn't reached and that the talks don't belong in the hands of a third party. Instead, Carey believes that a deal needs to be hammered out at the "bargaining table". He also added that the TWC/Fox negotiate was a mutual deal.
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