"The CBS network has upped the ante with a consumer scare campaign" about the potentialnretransmission consent blackout with Time Warner Cable, said two groups. Consumer Action andnthe League of United Latin American Citizens cited on-screen crawls on CBS stations about thenblackout, which may start as soon as Thursday morning (CD July 24 p21). "CBS is putting consumersnin the middle of a fight they shouldn’t have to worry about," said the two groups in a news releasenWednesday. "While the current dispute affects only Time Warner Cable customers, the situationnis likely to spread to other pay TV providers as retrans consent agreements expire and the scrapping begins all over again." A CBS spokeswoman had no response to the groups' statement.nCiting the American Television Alliance of Time Warner Cable and other multichannel video programmingndistributors and some public interest groups seeking to change retrans rules, ConsumernAction and LULAC said retrans fees are projected to more than double to more than $6 billion byn2018 from recent levels. Time Warner Cable was "among a number of companies that supported"nConsumer Action's 41st anniversary event in October, and the company may have backed the previousnanniversary event as well, said Linda Sherry, director-national priorities for the group. Othern"benefactors" for October's event included AT&T and DirecTV, which like Time Warner Cable arenmembers of the American Television Alliance. Google and Microsoft were among other sponsors ofnthe event, according to its website, which Sherry referred us to (http://bit.ly/15gkNl8). She said thenbenefactor level is $5,000, in an email responding to our questions. Time Warner Cable is onenamong many MVPDs and broadcasters that contribute to LULAC, said Executive Director BrentnWilkes. "We publicly get support from all sides in this debate" on retrans, he said in response to ournquestions about financial ties between the group and companies affected by retrans. "We’ve hadnboth sides present to us on the issue," and LULAC isn't "trying to pick a side on who should paynwhat" and doesn't want blackouts, said Wilkes. "We represent the Latino consumer. And from thenLatino consumer perspective, we believe they should have uninterrupted service they believe they’renpaying for when they subscribe" to an MVPD service, said Wilkes. He said Comcast, which ownsnboth broadcast and cable properties, and ABC, Telemundo and Univision are among other contributorsnto LULAC.
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