A nasty battle between the nation’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster and the second-largest cable company has resulted in Univision pulling its channels from millions of Charter-Spectrum customers.

This dispute involves Charter’s recent merger with Time Warner Cable, which propelled the formerly mid-tier pay-TV/broadband provider into the rarified air of industry giants like Comcast and DirecTV.

Even though the merged company retained the “Charter” name, Univision says the cable provider insists on paying a carriage rate negotiated for the much larger Time Warner Cable.

TWC’s size allowed it to negotiate better carriage deals with broadcasters, but Univision and others have alleged that Charter is illegally seeking to pay that lower rate.

Unable to reach a deal, Univision ordered Charter to pull its channels — including UniMas, Galavision, Univision Deportes, and its flagship namesake network — from all Charter customers’ cable listings nationwide.

Charter obliged this request, and these stations went dark overnight, but in a statement to Consumerist, Charter maintains that, “We have a contract with Univision and we expect them to honor it.”

Univision, in a separate statement, argues that Charter has “continually rejected all of Univision’s repeated, good-faith efforts to reach an agreement. As a result, Charter has decided to deny its subscribers continued access to Hispanic America’s most popular entertainment and sports, and most trusted news content.”

With the Time Warner Cable acquisition, Charter is now the largest cable-TV provider in Los Angeles and New York City.

[via L.A. Times]

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