Fox Programs Still On Time Warner Cable As Talks Continue

After midnight, Fox 5 was still on Time Warner Cable

It's a New Year's miracle: While News Corp. threatened to pull its stations from Time Warner Cable systems during subscriber fee negotiations at midnight, Fox remained on air. It turned out that two media behemoths agreed to extend talks. The Wall Street Journal reports they have "avert[ed] any programming disruptions for cable subscribers for the time being."

The FCC had urged both sides to continue talking yesterday. News Corp. wants $1 per subscriber (per month), which the WSJ says is "a rate that would set a new precedent for the broadcast industry as it seeks to shift its business model to include substantial subscription fees from pay-TV operators like its cable network counterparts." Which Time Warner Cable naturally doesn't want to do, preferring to pay a lower rate and to avoid pay $1 per subscriber to other networks like ABC, CBS and NBC.

However, some cable networks were yanked off a cable system today: Scripps took FoodTV and HGTV off Cablevision because it wants more money from Cablevision. Scripps CEO Kenneth Lowe said, "Viewers love our talent and our shows, which is why Food Network and HGTV rank among the top networks in cable. But our valuable networks simply are not being compensated like top ten networks by Cablevision. The distribution rates Cablevision pays for Food and HGTV are among the lowest in the industry."

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By Jen Chung in News on January 1, 2010 11:50 AM

Comments [rss]

yooeff99

i guess all of you TWC customers didnt get this email, but we are getting screwed anyway starting today. And this came weeks before this "deal" happened.

http://www.timewarnercable.com/nynj/learn/bundles/details/ratechanges.html

buttface

Fox doesn't have the balls. How many of their ratings-generators and ad-viewers are on Time Warner? It won't work. Ad revenue would plummet.

TWC will win this one.

EastRiver

TWC will win this one.

More likely they will end up compromising and TWC will pay more than they are paying now but less than the dollar Fox says they want.

Darrell

Cablevision should just go off and die. I'm stuck on their shitty service because Verizon for whatever reason didn't wire my building for Fios even though its new and they had the fios lines running through the previous building that was standing. God forbid if I get all 15mbps that I pay for, let alone 3 on the weekends. I swear the minute FIOS becomes available is the day I leave Cablevision forever. I never watched food network, but HGTV was a good channel, cable even carried their HD channel. Now I just have a hole and another network that is sorely missing (like Current, which Cablevision also refuses to carry).

God damn it Verizon, please wire my building for Fios. I'll sign the two year contract, anything to escape cable again. I even used to have DirecTV just to escape cablevision's shitty hardware and subpar service. My TV would get cut out in the rain, but I still liked it more than I like Optimum.

JacqueMehoff

too bad.

I'd wish it would be turned off and then people would get a new tv and antenna and see how much clearer OTA reception is now.

FDTW

People still have cable? Have they just not heard of the internet?

ed_Extinct

Fox, you're weak! This proves more than anything, that TWC has the upper hand.

harrisgraber

Time Warner should pay them what they want, but turn Fox channels into premium channels where users pay to see Fox. That saves the rest of us an increase in fees.

Alternatively, TW could just drop Fox. I wouldn't miss them one bit.