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Lights Back On At ABC

May 1, 2000 / 7:23 PM EDT / AP

And down the stretch they'll come, after all.

Time Warner agreed Tuesday to return ABC to its cable systems for the time being, lifting a blackout that had threatened to keep 3.5 million people from seeing the Kentucky Derby and NHL playoffs.

The cable company agreed, in effect, to an extension to keep negotiating until July 15 with the Walt Disney Co., ABC's corporate parent, over transmission rights.

Time Warner and ABC have tried for months to reach a new national deal; the old one expired Dec. 31.

ABC said it was "gratified that Time Warner is now making the viewers their first priority."

The dispute left seven ABC stations off local cable systems, including New York and Los Angeles, as of Monday. The blackout came during a sweeps period, when ratings are used to set local advertising rates. Sweeps began Thursday and end May 24.

Had the dispute carried into the weekend, advertisers could have asked ABC Sports to compensate them for lost viewers.

The network, in the first season of a five-year, $600 million deal it and ESPN have with the NHL, will air a second-round playoff game Sunday from either the Colorado-Detroit or Pittsburgh-Philadelphia series.

"We're delighted to be airing on ABC this weekend," Bernadette Mansur, NHL group VP for communications, said Tuesday. "We've had a good growth pattern in our ratings and our demographics and look forward to continuing."

The NHL playoffs on ABC have averaged a 2.0 big-market overnight rating, up 5 percent from the 1.9 over the same period last year on Fox.

ABC, with commentator Jim McKay, has televised the Kentucky Derby since 1975 and covered all three Triple Crown races since 1987. Because the network was outbid by NBC in October on a new thoroughbred racing deal, this is ABC's last of 26 straight Derbys.

"If everything we hear is true, it's great news. Now all of America will be able to see America's greatest race," said Karl Schmitt, senior VP of Churchill Downs Inc., which owns the track and the Derby.

Other ABC Sports broadcasts that had been under threat of blackout included the final two rounds of the PGA Tour's Compaq Classic on Saturday and Sunday, the International Figure Skating Challenge on May 13, and the Indy 500 on May 28.

About 1.5 million cable customers in New York were without ABC programming from 12:01 a.m. Monday until early afternoon Tuesday. Other areas affected included Los Angeles; Houston; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Toledo, Ohio; Fresno, Calif., and Philadelphia.