Disney, Time Warner in Texas Showdown

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC will pull its programming from Time Warner Inc.’s cable television system in Houston on Thursday unless the companies can reach a nationwide agreement for carriage of the network’s programming.

The move would affect about 680,000 Time Warner subscribers. Negotiations hit an impasse when Time Warner refused ABC’s demand to carry the Disney Channel and two other cable networks in its basic program package in exchange for being able to carry the local ABC broadcast station’s signal.

The companies have been trying to negotiate a so-called retransmission agreement since last year that would cover several markets where ABC owns TV stations, including parts of Los Angeles.