CBS BOASTS IT WON DISPUTE WITH TWC; TWC CONCEDES DEFEAT

The two sides in the Time Warner Cable/CBS dispute assessed its consequences on Wednesday, seeming to reconfirm earlier judgments by analysts that CBS was the clear winner and TWC, the loser. Speaking during a conference call with analysts, CBS chief Les Moonves said that the blackout that removed CBS from TWC subscribers’ homes for more than a month cost CBS “virtually nothing.” He said that when the company files its third-quarter earnings statement, investors will see that the dispute resuled in “no harm done financially.” He then took a swipe at TWC, saying that from a public-relations standpoint, “I would think more people were against Time Warner Cable. You know, those are all the people who have the guy show up six hours late for their installation.” Time Warner Cable’s COO, Rob Marcus, seemed to concede as much when he told media analysts on Wednesday that the dispute “definitely had a subscriber impact. It increased disconnects, and we don’t take that lightly.”