• by Wayne Friedman , November 18, 2013

Amid a season of contentious TV carriage battles, Time Warner Cable and Discovery Communications have quietly announced a long-term renewal deal. Terms were not disclosed.

A press release says the agreement “will allow Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to continue delivery of Discovery’s networks to their subscribers without interruption.”

The deal covers not only traditional cable network carriage but video-on-demand offerings from Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, Hub Network, Military Channel, Discovery Fit & Health, Discovery en Español, Discovery Familia, Velocity and Destination America.

“The parties also expect Time Warner Cable customers to enjoy authenticated access to Discovery content in the near future," notes the agreement.

“We’re pleased to have reached this long-term agreement with Discovery well in advance of our deadline,” said Andrew I. Rosenberg, senior vice president of content acquisition for Time Warner Cable.  

The existing deal was to expire at the end of the year. One estimate says Discovery Channel gets around 40 cents per month on average from TV program distributors.

The next deal for Time Warner to work on is a carriage agreement with Viacom networks, which also finishes at year's-end. Viacom’s MTV gets around 43 cents per subscriber from cable operators; Viacom’s Nickelodeon receives 60 cents, according to SNL Kagan.

Back in August, Time Warner Cable and CBS Corp. had a month-long highly public battle over retrans fees for CBS broadcast stations .