Time Warner Cable, Fox News Make No-Rough-Stuff-Type of Deal

Oddly, agreement doesn't involve the network going dark or weeks of public fighting

See? It is possible for a network and a carrier to reach a deal that doesn't involve any kind of public feud.

Time Warner Cable and Fox News have reached a new long-term affiliation agreement in which Fox News will receive an increase in the fees Time Warner pays to carry the highest-rated cable news network.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Los Angeles Times, which first reported it, said Fox's raise will bring it more than $1 per subscriber in the first year of the deal, with increases in the years that follow. The jump brings Fox News up to the level of entertainment channels like Time Warner's TNT, the Times said.

Negotiations lasted months, but didn't break into headlines like those between Viacom and DirecTV last month, or the ongoing feud between Dish Networks and AMC.

After Viacom networks went dark on DirecTV last month, the two launched PR campaigns against one another that sometimes included both companies running banner ads across viewers' screens at the same time. The two sides came to an agreement after two weeks.

Dish, meanwhile, has dropped AMC Networks, saying its ratings are too low to justify higher payments. The network disputes that, pointing, for one example, to the excellent ratings for "The Walking Dead."

Among the ways AMC has jabbed Dish: By streaming the season 5 premiere of "Breaking Bad" for Dish customers. (Among the episode titles for the show is "A No-Rough-Stuff Type of Deal," a helpful phrase we stole for the headline of this story. Thanks.)

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