At 12:01AM on May 1, The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, pulled its ABC broadcast signal from Time Warner cable systems in 11 markets around the country, affecting approximately 3.5 million households.

Disney is trying to use its ownership of ABC to extract excessive and unreasonable terms for its cable channels - terms that would add hundreds of millions of dollars in costs for Time Warner Cable and its customers.

In the past week, Time Warner has made two reasonable proposals to Disney that would have kept ABC on Time Warner cable systems through the end of the year. Unfortunately, Disney has decided to single out Time Warner customers by rejecting both proposals, while recently agreeing to similar long-term extensions with other cable companies.

"Disney's repeated threats, deadlines and short-term extensions have caused our customers great frustration and anxiety," said Bill Grinstead, President, Time Warner Bakersfield. "We regret any temporary inconvenience, but we're not going to let Disney force our customers to 'walk the plank' one more time. Our primary goal is to put our customers first."

Federal law says no cable company can carry a broadcast TV signal without the broadcaster's permission. Disney's rejection of our offers unfortunately means that; by law, we do not have permission to retransmit their ABC signal. "Disney withheld consent; therefore, Disney is responsible for our customers losing ABC," said Grinstead.

In January, Time Warner reached a long-term agreement with Disney, but Disney reneged at the last minute. Since then, Time Warner has worked hard to convince Disney to act reasonably and place customers' interests first. Disney has refused all offers and continues to make excessive demands.

"Our goal is to put customers first," said Grinstead. "Our most recent offers would have done that. We continue to believe that the best way to resolve the situation is to extend our existing agreement through the end of the year while we continue to negotiate a long-term agreement.