Disney dispute could take ABC off cable in major cities

PHILADELPHIA - A disagreement between Comcast Cable and The Walt Disney Co. could result in a blackout of ABC affiliates in major U.S. cities, affecting 3 million of television viewers.

Philadelphia-based Comcast is in a dispute with Disney similar to the deadlock that saw 3.5 million customers of Time-Warner, the nation's second-largest cable company, lose their Disney-owned ABC stations for two days in May.

The battle could take ABC off Comcast systems in Philadelphia, northern New Jersey suburbs, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toledo, Ohio, and Flint, Mich., if a retransmission agreement with Disney is not renewed or extended by midnight Sunday.

For instance, in order to watch ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,'' ''Good Morning America,'' or ''Jeopardy,'' 1.5 million Philadelphia viewers would have to use rabbit-ear antennas to pull in the signal of WPVI-TV, ABC's affiliate.

Each side blames the other.

Comcast President Stephen B. Burke says it's a case of Disney flexing its muscle. Disney says it only seeks fair compensation for letting Comcast carry its Philadelphia ABC affiliate.

''That's two times in six months they've gotten in this kind of fight,'' said Burke, who worked at Disney as president of ABC Broadcasting before joining Comcast in 1998. ''I think they are sort of trying to scare the customers.''

The Time-Warner blackout in New York ended when the company agreed to carry the Disney Channel for seven years in return for access to the ABC stations.

Disney now wants Comcast, the third-largest cable company, to offer the ToonDisney and SoapNet channels as well as the Disney Channel to subscribers of Comcast's basic service at no extra charge.

Julie Hoover, an ABC spokeswoman in New York, said that in return for access to the local ABC stations, ''most cable companies seem to prefer to compensate us by carrying other sources of programming which provide additional value to their viewers.''

Disney's cartoon and soap opera channels, Hoover said, ''are all things of great value, and having WPVI is of huge importance to them.''

Neither side wants a repeat of the outcry that arose in May when Time-Warner customers tuning to the channel that normally carries WABC-TV in New York found a message saying, ''Disney has taken ABC away from you.''

Comcast and ABC need each other. Comcast must offer customers the local ABC stations to meet federal ''must carry'' regulations. And, the ABC stations have millions of additional viewers and resulting advertising revenues at stake.

The retransmission agreement originally was to expire in December but has been kept in force by 11 months of extensions as negotiations continued.

''Cable companies generally have watched their programming costs increase. They are all trying to put the brakes on that,'' said cable industry analyst David Lee Smith of Dain Rauscher Wessels in Austin, Texas. ''This is a perfect example of a major cable company trying to hold the line on costs.''

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On the Net:

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Comcast: http://www.comcast.com