On April 30, 2000, as a result of a carriage dispute with ABC, Time Warner Cable removed ABC owned-and-operated stations from the cable provider's systems in four markets (WABC-TV in New York City, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, KTRK in Houston and WTVD in Raleigh-Durham). The network had earlier reached an eleventh-hour deal to renew its agreement with the provider on December 31, 1999. ABC filed an emergency petition to the FCC on May 1 to force TWC to restore the affected stations; the FCC ruled in favor of ABC, ordering TWC to restore the stations, doing so on the afternoon of May 2. ABC ended the 2000–01 season as the most-watched network, ahead of NBC.
