KXAN's website has a lobbying section that compares TWC broadcasting their network for free to someone bottling water from a drinking fountain and selling it.

KXAN says:

Here is a basic analogy: If you were to get a drink of water at a public drinking fountain, it is free, but once the water is placed in a package, it is no longer free. The same holds true for local television programming delivered through a subscription-based provider.
...
Time Warner Cable pays cable networks, such as ESPN, TNT, Disney, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, and the list goes on and on. Cable companies often say that local broadcasters have “unreasonable demands” and they are trying to “protect their subscribers from increasing their rates”. If that were true, why are they paying cable networks that have far less viewership than KXAN-TV?

We do not believe that a penny a per day per subscriber is an unreasonable demand for our award-winning news, sports and entertainment programming. It is actually much less than what cable companies compensate many of its cable networks, most of which do not have the high viewing of your local NBC station.

The station also says that they've reached agreements with every other provider — including DISH network, DirecTV, and AT&T.

Time Warner Cable, on the other hand, claims that KXAN is damaging its reputation as a news outlet by "conveying one sided, misleading information to the public." And has set up its own "Anti-KXAN" website.

Time Warner Says:

KXAN is demanding money from our customers to pay for a signal that has been and is free. That's right. They get it free from the Federal Government, but they want you to pay. We don't want that to happen just so KXAN can add to their revenue base.

KXAN is trying to subsidize their business by charging cable customers money. By doing so, they not only add to their revenue base, but take advantage of their viewers by charging for a signal that is FREE.

This may sound familiar to some of you, as the same struggle is going on all over the country, where other stations owned by KXAN's parent company, LIN TV, will also be dropped from TWC on October 2nd if a deal isn't reached.

There are 15 LIN TV-owned stations carried by Time Warner: Austin, Texas; Buffalo, N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Green Bay, Wis.; Indianapolis; Mobile, Ala.; Springfield, Mass.; Terre Haute, Ind. and Toledo, Ohio.

So what's a consumer to do? Well, you can wait it out and hope that the stations reach a deal with TWC, buy a good antenna, or you can make plans to switch. LIN-TV is encouraging TWC's customers to switch to DISH Network — and also told Multichannel News that customers in the Buffalo area and the Fort Wayne market can switch to FiOS.

If you're in Austin, Buffalo, Columbus, Dayton, Fort Wayne, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Mobile, Terre Haute and Toledo markets you can receive a $50 incentive to switch to DISH.

Retrans Standoff Could Keep LIN TV Stations Off TWC Systems [Multichannel News] (Thanks, Clint!)

The bank initially downplayed the issue, calling it an “infrastructure problem” or a “systems issue involving disks in our mainframe computer” that affected “certain applications.” In reality, it was much worse.

“It’s very serious to have your core system go down,” said Bart Narter, senior vice president of the banking group at technology research firm Celent. “It is a major technical failure.”

A bank’s core system is the back-office computer that keeps track of checking and other account balances and transactions. Many other bank systems, such as online banking and ATMs, rely on the information in that system. Other computer systems are unrelated.

“The core system is the system of record, the absolute arbiter of how much money you have and how much money you deposited today,” Narter said.

Most U. S. banks do not operate in “real time,” but rather keep computerized notes or “memos” of all transactions that occur during a given day, Narter said. At night, during a specified window when the bank shuts down, officials run the core program to update the accounts using “batches” of those transaction records. They then bring the system back up in the morning.

If the hard drive fails, the bank has to reboot and restore the system, and then rerun the overnight batches to catch up. That takes time at a big bank.

“This is a bank’s worst nightmare, to have the core banking system goes down,” he said. “That means any channel you go to, they’re running blind.”

The bank is keeping select upstate branches open late so Catholic Health System employees can come in and trade their pay stubs for cash. As for affected HSBCDirect customers, the bank promises to "return full–system functionality to you as soon as possible."

HSBC’s issues mostly repaired, but cause still sought [The Buffalo News]
HSBC struggles with customer transactions after crash of computer system [The Buffalo News]
(Photo: Getty)

"Within the industry, everyone knows about Buffalo," said Aaron Siegel, chief executive of Franklin Credit Solutions, an investment firm here that buys debt from lenders and farms it out to collection agencies to pursue.

Demand for collectors is so strong, Mr. Siegel said, that good ones "can walk out the door and get another job that afternoon."

[...]

As an added benefit, Mr. Costa and other executives said, people in Buffalo tend to be loyal, so turnover is only 20 percent after the first 90 days, compared with 50 percent or more at agencies in other parts of the country.

On average, experienced collectors in western New York earn $32,000 a year; homes in the region can cost less than $100,000.

The downside, executives say, is that the best collectors — some of whom get performance bonuses that boost their salaries to $150,000 a year — will quit with little notice if they get a better offer.

From Kiplinger's:

"The homeowner just assumes, well the bank's going to take my house, but the bank can make the economic decision not to take the house," said Cindy Cooper, a Housing Court prosecutor in Buffalo. "Then that leaves two parties walking away, each one thinking that the other is going to take care of the house."

Pianka still lives in the neighborhood where he grew up and knows firsthand the blight of houses with boarded-up windows.

"The scrappers are taking the jewelry off the corpses that are left," he said from his 13th-floor office which overlooks frozen Lake Erie.

He's well regarded among members of the Warsaw Neighborhood Block Watch Club, who have spent time in his courtroom, determined to see something done about open, vandalized homes in their Slavic Village neighborhood.

Vacant houses, some stripped bare of aluminum siding, dot the streets, casting a gloom on their well-maintained neighbors.

"It scares people," said Joyce Porozynski, a block watch member who has lived in the neighborhood most of her life. "Many people have given up."

Across the street from Charles Gliha's cozy 120-year-old home stand three vacant houses, including one with the first-floor windows broken out. Another is being repaired, and a sign in the window warns would-be thieves that there are no copper pipes inside.

"If the house is not in a terrible state, a lot of times the bank will discharge the mortgage so that the property can be donated either to a neighbor to be demolished or a nonprofit organization for rehabilitation," Cooper said. Other times, each side pays a share.

Cities Fight Glut of Vacant Houses [Kiplinger]
Cleveland Land Bank [City of Cleveland]
(Photo:gwdexter)