It seems appropriate to catch Fools up on a media phenomenon that we discussed a few months ago: the efforts by broadcasting companies to exact retransmission fees from the nation's cable multi-systems operators (MSOs).
You'll recall that, after literally decades of watching their channels being picked up by the MSOs and rebroadcast to cable subscribers without compensation, the broadcasters have recently begun to demand payment from the cable companies for their programming. One of the major battles occurred last year and into 2007, when medium-sized cable operator Mediacom
At this juncture, the most important remaining questions in this emerging confrontation are the extent to which rebroadcast compensation will sweep across the cable industry and the degree to which their essentially found money will affect the broadcasters' financials. As to the first subject, a number of agreements have quietly been signed in the broadcast-cable arena, including one between the second-largest MSO, Time Warner Cable
A degree of clarity regarding the second question emerged last week when CBS
Presumably, that order of magnitude would hold for other broadcasters such as Sinclair, LIN
To rebroadcast related Foolishness:
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Fool contributor David Lee Smith does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned. He welcomes your questions or comments. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.