FOX --- Here in Fort Wayne it appears that the local station is losing its FOX affiliation.

Is this happening or has it happened in other areas?

Does FOX have financial problems? I hope!!

Starting in August the local FOX will move their physical and channel to a different location that is home to another network.

While not saying so directly, Mike Hopkins, Fox's president of affiliate sales and marketing, suggested the network would be playing hardball with its affiliates when he told Broadcasting & Cable in February that "in certain markets of the country if the economics of broadcasting aren't able to support the broadcast network we may have to make a determination that we might be better off not being broadcasters in that market and be a cable channel."

Read more: Fox demands to affiliate stations point to retransmission fee share increase - FierceCable http://www.fiercecable.com/story/fox-demands-affiliate-stations-point-retransmission-fee-share-increase/2011-05-12#ixzz1PsQHu2bU

Fox is squeezing its affiliates to give the network a greater share of "retransmission consent" revenues that the stations collect from cable and satellite. Those retransmission consent fees (which are negotiated) were intended not as a substitute for the national networks, but to help support local programming. But the national nets (not just Fox, but CBS and ABC as well) are gobbling up as much as they can. Once upon a time the networks paid their affiliates to carry network programming; but now the situation is reversed. Nexstar, the Ft. Wayne affiliate, wouldn't play ball, so Fox pulled the affiliation and made a deal with another station. Its not the first market where Fox has done this and it probably won't be the last.

CBS Corp., based in New York, is the only major network that gets some retransmission fees, receiving about 50 cents a month for each pay-TV subscriber in some markets, Robin Flynn, a consultant with SNL Kagan in Monterey, California, said in an interview. Broadcasters such as News Corp.’s Fox may seek $1 a month or more as current deals expire, she said.

CBS, owner of the most-watched TV network, aims for $250 million a year in such fees, Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said last week at a UBS AG conference in New York, suggesting the big four broadcasters could seek as much as $1 billion a year from the pay-TV industry.

‘Considerable Amount’

CBS’s current deal with Comcast expires in 2011, Frederic Reynolds, the company’s former finance chief, said on a June 4 conference call. Talks between networks and cable carriers can last a year or longer.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aS559x7x3IuU

From the end of 2009, before these contracts came back up for negotiation.