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CBS may pull stations from Time Warner from today in payments clash

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

July 24, 2013 | 3 min read

CBS stations, and possibly Showtime, may vanish from screens in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas this morning says CBS CEO Leslie Moonves in a memo to staff about the company's dispute with Time Warner Cable.

LES MOONVES: "Fair compensation."

In the memo, Moonves said the network was only looking for fair compensation. "CBS programmes are among the most popular in the industry, and yet there are many cable networks -- with considerably less viewership -- that receive more money for their programming from Time Warner Cable than we do," he said.

CBS is not among the top 10 recipients of programming fees paid by Time Warner Cable, according to the memo, quoted by AdAge. Big shows from CBS include the NFL , The Big Bang Theory NCIS and 60 Minutes. CBS has never "gone dark" during its negotiations with other providers, Moonves said, while Time Warner Cable has taken nearly 50 channels off the air in its disputes with networks.

A Time Warner Cable spokeswoman responded, "The truth is literally every other distributor, whether cable, satellite, or telco, has acknowledged the problems created by programmers' rising costs .

"CBS claim publicly that they've offered us the same rates, but privately, they've refused to offer us assurances that the rate they are seeking for CBS is the same rate they are seeking from others," she added.

Time Warner Cable claims CBS wants to charge fees 600% higher than it pays for the same programming in smaller markets.

In the memo, Mr. Moonves says Time Warner Cable has the money to pay higher fees.

"Cable is a very, very profitable business, and Time Warner Cable can certainly afford to pay CBS a fair rate for our programming without passing any added cost on to its customers," he wrote.

In order to invest in premium content,said Moonves, "we need to be paid fairly for it. Yet we receive far less than channels that have nowhere near our popularity."

Time Warner Cable says it will advise viewers to use Aereo, the streaming-TV service that broadcasters are trying to sue, to get CBS if it goes dark in the dispute.

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