A done deal. No dropped signals. Consumers kept their ESPN. In fact, they get their ESPN3! "In the deal announced on Thursday, 12.7 million Time Warner video subscribers and 2.4 million Bright House Networks video subscribers will get access to ESPN3.com without an extra charge." I'm sorry, without an extra charge. This is not really truthful. For the moment, the consumer will not spend extra to receive this internet channel, but trust me, they will spend more. "Disney also won a cash payment for granting Time Warner Cable the right to retransmit signals from four ABC stations and secured carriage of a new 24-hour channel called Disney Junior, a rebranding of its SOAPnet channel, when it starts up in 2012." These "extra costs" will be quickly bundled together and the cable bill will go up by even more than the amount spent. Heck, you gotta keep those margins up.
It certainly helps position Time Warner as the aggregator for branded cable and web content, working through Time Warner to authenticate these users to watch their ESPN 3 on a computer or other mobile device. Perhaps it is how TV Anywhere will ultimately be monetized.
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