Time Warner, CBS Agreement Ends Cable Blackout For 3.2 Million Viewers

Time Warner and CBS have finally come to an agreement, ending a bitter dispute between the two companies. As a result of the new agreement, normal scheduled programming resumed as of 6 pm ET, Sunday.

The dispute meant a lot of inconvenience for over 3.2 million viewers in Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. The fallout meant that Time Warner was not able to show premium CBS shows from stations such as Showtime for more than a month.

Time Warner’s CEO, Glenn Britt, said in a statement that he was very happy to have CBS content back on the airwaves:

“We’re pleased to be able to restore CBS programming for our customers, and appreciate their patience and loyalty throughout the dispute. As in all of our negotiations, we wanted to hold down costs and retain our ability to deliver a great video experience for our customers. While we certainly didn’t get everything we wanted, ultimately we ended up in a much better place than when we started.”

It comes as great news to viewers in the affected areas who want to view the CBS channels, which had been unavailable until yesterday. The dispute between the two companies also caused great confusion among paying subscribers who wanted to be credited for the viewing which they missed.

CBS’s CEO, Leslie Moonves, also gave a statement, expressing his satisfaction with the new agreement:

“The final agreements with Time Warner Cable deliver to us all the value and terms that we sought in these discussions. We are receiving fair compensation for CBS content and we also have the ability to monetize our content going forward on all the new, developing platforms that are right now transforming the way people watch television.”

Viewers hope that the agreement between Time Warner and CBS will be solid and stand the test of time. Paying subscribers don’t want to pay for content they don’t receive just because of a financial disagreement between the big corporations.