Audio Video News

To the consternation of New York area viewers, two major broadcast channels went dark on a local cable system over the weekend.

WNYW-5, also known as Fox5, and WWOR-9, also known as My9, suddenly vanished from the TVs of Cablevision subscribers in parts of New York City and Long Island. Viewers have become collateral damage in a fight over cable carriage of the two News Corp.-owned over-the-air channels. Also affected are cable channels Fox Sports, Fox Deportes, Nat Geo Wild, and the syndication service MyNetworkTV.

Cablevision accuses Fox of gouging for the right to carry the stations on cable, pointing to the fact that the cable system already pays $70 million for the privilege. Fox, which is demanding $150 million, retorts that Cablevision is underpaying for valuable programming and bargaining in bad faith.

And now for a fun game of he said, she said!

Cablevision: "News Corp.'s pattern of destructive tactics has become clear. First, they threatened Time Warner Cable customers for weeks; then they pulled regional sports and cable channels off Dish Network; and now they have pulled the plug on Fox 5 and My9 for 3 million Cablevision households. Further, they are now threatening to pull their broadcast stations away from Dish Network's 14 million customers in two weeks. It is clear that News Corp. will pull the plug on any viewer, served by any cable, satellite or phone company, to get the money they want."

Fox: "We deeply regret that Cablevision refuses to recognize the value of our programming.... After days of posturing and the appearance of negotiating, they formally stopped even the pretense of negotiating at 8 p.m. -- declaring an 'impasse' -- and made no further efforts toward reaching a new agreement before the expiration." More juicy bits from the WNYW website: "It is increasingly clear that Cablevision's real intention is to continue making this their subscribers' problem in the hope that with enough inconvenience, politicians will intervene to protect Cablevision's huge profits -- nearly $795 per subscriber per year."

You know things have come to a head when Rupert Murdoch's people start complaining about somebody else's profits.

With no agreement in sight, Fox pulled the plug at 12:05 a.m. on Saturday October 16 and its channels went dark on Cablevision. Time Warner Cable, the other New York area cable system, was not affected (this time).

Viewers were the losers. This past weekend alone Cablevision subscribers missed MLB and NFL games to which many of them had looked forward. While some of them probably recaptured the signal by switching to antenna, that option isn't available to all residents of New York, where signals can go from strong to weak to practically nonexistent, depending on location, even within the same building.

This unfortunate story is just the latest episode in a long-running fight between owners of broadcast television channels and the cable systems that carry them in their bottom-tier broadcast basic packages. Part of the problem is that the Federal Communications Commission distinguishes between "must carry" (stations can demand to be carried on cable systems but without payment) and "retransmission consent" (stations get carried on cable with payment). Thus the FCC will twist a cable operator's arm to carry a station, but only if the station owner doesn't get paid. This sets the stage for conflict.

The FCC recognizes the problem and has discussed tightening up its retransmission rules to prevent fee disputes from affecting viewers. In the meantime, enjoy this fun Cable Carriage of Broadcast Stations fact sheet, a document now 10 years old and manifestly out of date.

See whiney Cablevision and Fox press releases plus other official statements on Cablevision and WNYW sites. Fox has also blessed the internet with a KeepFoxOn site that encourages viewers to sign up with alternate providers and "make your fan-fabulous voice heard" on Facebook, Twitter, etc.