Washington, D.C. (January 5, 2007) -- Belo Corp., which owns 19 television stations nationwide, is forcing cable operators to pull their local High-Definition TV signals from their lineups in several cities.

The company is requesting the cable operators to pay a fee to carry the high-def signals. However, the cable companies say the local HD channels should be free because they are available for free via off-air antennas.

Until now, Belo has allowed the cable operators to continue to carry the local high-def signals while negotiations continued. But the company began ordering the cable companies to pull the HD feeds this week.

The decision is affecting cable subscribers in several cities, including Fort Worth, St. Louis, New Orleans, Charlotte and Norfolk, Virginia.

In St. Louis, Sharifah Williams, a Charter spokeswoman, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the cable op "does not believe our customers should have to pay extra for a signal that is transmitted free of charge and can be received over-the-air with a UHF antenna."

But Jim Rothschild, director of operations for the Belo-owned KMOV in St. Louis, said Charter should pay because the high-def channel helps the cable operator sign -- and keep -- customers.

"We are simply asking Charter to share some of the value that it gets from our HD investment. They pay national channels for HDTV services, so they should also pay local channels," he told the newspaper.