You have to wonder what kind of tough negotiators the guys at Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC-WI) are when you consider that Sinclair Broadcast Group has extended affiliation agreements with Fox, a broadcaster known for its knuckles-first approach to negotiations.
The new deal with between the two extends a previous agreement that ran to March 31, 2012 to Dec. 31, 2012. Sinclair, as everyone who hasn't been vacationing in Tahiti knows, is in an increasingly ugly retransmission spat with Time Warner Cable. Originally slated to end Dec. 31, 2010, the two parties have agreed to work through the end of this work week to come up with something new.
TWC said even if Sinclair blacks out local Fox or other network affiliates, it will be able to carry national feeds thanks to a separate agreement with the News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA) company. Sinclair claims that Time Warner won't increase monthly retrans fees by 10 cents per subscriber.
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