Three million Cablevision subscribers in the New York area awoke to black screens Saturday after News Corp. escalated its dispute with the cable provider. News Corp. and Cablevision met in a meeting in Midtown Manhattan to resolve the issue but no solution could be achieved which would please both the parties. The dispute arose as Cablevision have accused Fox’s owner News Corp. of “corporate greed”, “extortion” and “outrageous demands”. Fox have also been charged to be “holding their own viewers hostage” during this dispute that has failed to produce any reasonable solution regarding the retransmission content.
News Corporation Fox is demanding too much money from cablevision to air the Fox stations. The cablevision would not meet their demands resulting in last nights blackout. The News Corporation pulled their Fox Programs. It got ugly after that when a voice came on over the blacked out channels and read a list of grievances and stated some harsh words including, “holding their own viewers hostage,” “corporate greed.” and “extortion.”
Fox News is the exclusive network for the Major League Baseball National League Champion Series. Cablevision Customers will miss out on game one of the Phillies play off game if an agreement is not reached before the start of the game at 7:57pm.
According to Cablevision, Fox has been demanding an astounding amount of $150 million to retransmit Fox programming, otherwise FOX 5 will not be shown to viewers. News Corp. is demanding more money than any other broadcast channel and Cablevision blames greed, power and money to be the only reasons responsible for the uprising of these problems. The Federal Communications Commission is also trying to end the dispute and while Cablevision is ready to accept their offer, Fox have declined to accept the FCC’s arbitration. Fox wants a more direct approach from Cablevision to resolve this issue, and want to negotiate rather than go for arbitration.
“Cablevision needs to stop hiding behind a call for binding arbitration and negotiate in good faith,” Fox said in a statement. “Direct business-to-business negotiation is the only way to resolve this issue, while also preserving the long-term stability of the broadcast system. We will continue to negotiate and are committed to putting all our resources towards reaching a fair resolution.”
You might like: