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CBS Corporation and Time Warner Cable (TWC) have been embroiled in a carriage dispute since the expiration of their contract on June 30, and as a result the two sides gave Wednesday, July 24 as their deadline to come to an agreement before millions of CBS viewers were left in the dark. Thankfully, the two companies continued discussions and were able to extend their deadline several times since. Last night was the latest scheduled deadline, but both parties failed to come to an agreement yet again and have now set Friday, August 2 at 5:00 PM ET as the next deadline. The extension occurred nearly a half hour after TWC blackened CBS programming in various markets.

In May of this year, David Zaslav, CEO, Discovery Communications, stated that OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network would turn a profit for the first time at some point later this year. The network, which launched January 1, 2011 as a replacement of the Discovery Health Channel, has done it ahead of schedule.

The Young and the Restless

In an interview published in the newest issue of Soap Opera Digest, on sale now, “The Young and the Restless'” Michelle Stafford reveals the real reason behind her decision to exit the top rated daytime drama series after 15 years portraying the role of Phyllis Summers, whether the powers that be (TPTB) ever tried to change her mind and her thoughts on the soap possibly recasting the character.

Days of our Lives

With more than 30 years under her belt portraying Hope Brady on NBC’s “Days of our Lives,” Kristian Alfonso has signed a new contract with the daytime drama series that’ll keep her in Salem for the foreseeable future, reports Soap Opera Digest.

While the soaps are all up year-to-year in total viewers and key sales demos, CBS’ “The Talk” is also showing signs of solid growth. Last week (week of July 15-19, 2013), the daytime talk show, hosted by Sharon Osbourne, Aisha Tyler, Sara Gilbert, Julie Chen and Sheryl Underwood, recorded its largest weekly audience ever as the program averaged 2.62 million viewers.

Shortly after it was announced that Kelly Sullivan would be departing ABC’s “General Hospital,” as a result of the soap opting to write her characters (Kate Howard/Connie Falconeri) off the canvas, the actress stated on her Facebook page, “I am not returning to ‘GH’ after August. This is not a contract issue, I have been written off the show.” It was unclear at the time whether August meant airdate or tape date. Things have since become clear as the actress has revealed on her Twitter page that she will be taping her last episode of the daytime drama series today, which means her last airdate will be sometime in August.