Fox blackout on Cablevision ends after 14 day standoff, glaring contest continues on
Evidently missing the first two games of the World Series was about all Cablevision thought it subscribers could take, as news just hit the wire: the fourteen-day standoff is over and both tonight's game three of the World Series and tomorrow's Jets vs Packers game are available to subscribers. While these carriage disputes are pretty common, it is very rare for channels to be pulled and downright unheard of for a channel as popular as Fox. It came to this because Cablevision was very unhappy about News Corp's new terms and after many pleas to the FCC and politicians to intervene, an advertising campaign, and eventually an unaccepted offer to match the price that Time Warner Cable pays, a deal has finally been done. Not exactly all's well that ends well, though, as Cablevision released the following statement: "In the absence of any meaningful action from the FCC, Cablevision has agreed to pay Fox an unfair price for multiple channels of its programming including many in which our customers have little or no interest." Talk about sour grapes. Well at least we can hope that Cablevision's efforts paid off a little bit and your cable bill won't go up as much as it would've if the outage never occurred to begin with. We can hope.
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FOX PROGRAMMING RETURNS TO CABLEVISION
BETHPAGE, NY, October 30, 2010 – Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) today reached agreement with News Corp. to return Fox programming to Cablevision. The channels will return to Cablevision immediately and in time for tonight's World Series game and tomorrow's NFL match-up between the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers.
The company released the following statement:
"In the absence of any meaningful action from the FCC, Cablevision has agreed to pay Fox an unfair price for multiple channels of its programming including many in which our customers have little or no interest. Cablevision conceded because it does not think its customers should any longer be denied the Fox programs they wish to see.
Cablevision thanks its customers for understanding the reasons for the dispute and for staying with us. We are also grateful to the 175 government leaders who raised their voices to urge government intervention and binding arbitration to prevent this blackout. It is clear the retransmission consent system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.
In the end, our customers will pay more than they should for Fox programming, but less than they would have if we had accepted the unprecedented rates News Corp. was demanding when they pulled their channels off Cablevision."
The channels returning to Cablevision are Fox 5 (WNYW), Fox 29 (WTXF), My9, Fox Business Network, National Geographic Wild and Fox Deportes.
