page_title: Bright House Networks
section_title: Carriage disputes
hierarchical_section_title: Bright House Networks / Carriage disputes
caption_attribution_description: Logo for the American media company w:Bright House Networks.
context_page_description: Bright House Networks, LLC also simply known as Bright House, was an American telecom company. Prior to its purchase by Charter Communications, it was the tenth-largest multichannel video service provider and the 6th largest cable internet provider in the United States. The company served more than 2.2 million customers.
  Bright House Networks' primary service offerings included digital television, high-speed internet, home security and automation and voice services.
  Bright House Networks also owned and operated two 24-hour local news operations; Central Florida News 13 serving the Orlando area, and Bay News 9 serving the Tampa Bay area.
context_section_description: When Bright House Networks was separate from Time Warner Cable, most of its carriage deals were still negotiated on its behalf by Time Warner Cable. Thus, Bright House Networks customers were affected whenever there were carriage disputes between TWC and a content provider, which has happened several times.
  From its inception in 2003, Bright House Networks's systems in central Florida, including Orlando, refused to carry Fox Sports Florida. This dated back to when the central Florida cable franchise was held by Cablevision, and then Time Warner Cable. As Bright House is by far the largest cable provider in central Florida, this left most of the Orlando area without most Orlando Magic games. The dispute ended in 2009, when Bright House added Fox Sports Florida to its lineup.
  On September 15, 2008, Bright House temporarily dropped stations owned by the LIN TV Corporation on its Pensacola, DeFuniak Springs and Indiana systems. Affected stations were WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, WISH-TV/WNDY-TV/WIIH-CA in Indianapolis and WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Even though the controversy was focused on Time Warner Cable systems, Bright House was included in the dispute, in areas where they were formerly owned by Time Warner. With both companies factored in, a total of 15 markets were affected.
  On December 31, 2008, Time Warner Cable and Viacom's MTV Networks had not agreed to renew any Viacom channel beyond the end of year. Therefore, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks would have lost all 19 Viacom channels (including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon) starting on January 1, 2009. This blackout was narrowly avoided when a zero-hour deal was reached shortly after 12 Midnight ET on January 1, 2009.
  In December 2009, the Fox Broadcasting Company announced that a dispute with Time Warner Cable could lead to Fox's owned and operated affiliates to be pulled from Bright House systems in the Detroit, Tampa Bay, Orlando and Gainesville markets, along with Fox's cable and sports channels in all markets served by Bright House. The carriage protests were announced shortly before Fox was to carry the Bowl Championship Series, which included the Florida Gators in the Sugar Bowl. The dispute excluded FX, Fuel TV, Fox Movie Channel, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and some regional sports channels, which are on separate contracts. Shortly before the 12 midnight ET deadline on December 31, 2009, Fox granted Time Warner Cable and Bright House a brief extension during New Year's Day as talks continued, so viewers would not miss the Sugar Bowl, though the other bowl games and the NFL lineup remained at risk. A settlement between the two parties was reached the evening of January 1, 2010, though no terms were disclosed; during the discussions that day, none of Fox's channels or stations were blacked out.
  In July 2010, ABC's parent company, Disney, announced that Disney was involved in a carriage dispute with Time Warner Cable for the first time since 2000 (because Bright House Networks deals are negotiated by Time Warner Cable, Bright House customers were also affected). In Bright House-served areas, the dispute involved the Disney Channel, Disney XD, ABC Family, and all the networks of ESPN. Despite word of an early agreement on August 30, 2010, it was not until the evening of the September 2 deadline that an agreement was reached between Disney and Time Warner Cable.
  On July 9, 2012, Hearst Television removed its stations from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks systems when the parties failed to reach a deal. In the interim, WESH Orlando was replaced on Bright House systems in Central Florida with WBRE-TV Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a station owned by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, while other Hearst stations on Bright House were replaced with other cable channels offered by Bright House. Nexstar complained that Bright House has used WBRE's signal outside their markets without permission, while Bright House argued it was within its rights to use that station's signal as a replacement until a deal with Hearst was reached. Ac
caption: Bright House Networks Spectrum
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