ONE HAND CLAPPING (TIME WARNER CABLE’S) FOR CANCELLATION OF OVATION

Two weeks after Time Warner Cable chief Glenn Britt warned that the company intends to drop little-watched channels, the cultural/arts network Ovation has become the first casualty of that strategy. The channel said on Tuesday that it had been notified that Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-largest cable company, will not renew its carriage contract when it expires after December 31. Ovation said that its audience has grown 55 percent in the past year and that the decision by the cable company will “negatively impact millions of Time Warner Cable customers who will no longer have access to Ovation’s unique arts programming.” Brad Samuels, Ovation’s head of content distribution, noted that while Time Warner Cable spends heavily in sports, it refuses to invest “pennies a month” that would allow it to “continue to offer its customers the only network dedicated to the arts.”