Mark Cuban's High Definition Dreams Crushed By Time Warner
Mark Cuban concedes his HDNet has been permanently kicked off Time Warner Cable Systems nationwide. It's a rough time for the mouthy internet entrepreneur.
It's bad enough that the Feds are still breathing down his neck over purported insider trading. Now Cuban must grapple with the loss of access to Time Warner's 13 million video subscribers.
"Wish I could get HDNets back on TWC, but I can't," Cuban tweeted yesterday, indicating he had failed in his efforts to get Time Warner to reverse its yanking of the network a few days earlier.
Cuban had been trying to get the flagship HDNet station out of Time Warner's marginal "HDTV Tier," which costs an extra $5 per month, and into a more widely-seen subscription package. Time Warner subscribers get a wide variety of HD channels even if they don't sign up for the "HDTV Tier."
Apparently the self-styled media maverick pushed the issue too hard, because now he's off the system entirely despite an offer to significantly reduce HDNet's fees.
The cut means CBS-newsman-turned-HDNet-star Dan Rather is off the air in New York, except for satellite customers.
Perhaps all this stress and conflict explains why Cuban was hitting the dessert table so hard at Dow Jones' "D" tech conference the other day; watch him work the free conference snacks in the background of the Beet.TV video below.