• The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:15 PM

News Corp. and CBS Corp. are pushing cable operators to start paying monthly fees to carry their broadcast TV stations. The broadcasters see a potential new stream of revenue by following the path of cable channels, which gather billions of dollars in fees paid by the cable TV operators.

News Corp., which owns the Fox network, is demanding cable operator Time Warner Cable make cash payments of as much as $1 per household per month. Their current contract expires at the end of this year. It's a stand0ff that pits one of the most-watched U.S. networks against one of the biggest TV distributors. If an agreement isn't reached, News Corp. could opt to pull the Fox TV stations it owns from Time Warner Cable's lineup.

CBS, meanwhile, has had some success in the last year wringing subscription fees from cable-TV providers, including Time Warner Cable, for access to its network. Although the deals vary, analysts estimate that providers are paying around 50 cents a month per household for access to CBS's television stations.

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