If you’re a New York Cablevision subscriber, you may have already noticed that you no longer have Fox. As of midnight tonight, the network’s deal with Cablevision, which includes FOX5, My9 and FOX29 has expired.
The loss of Fox stations for Cablevision subscribers means that those who want to watch the National League Championship Series, World Series, NFL, in addition to FOX’s popular original programming may want to start buddying up with friends who have DirectTV, Time Warner or some other means of viewing FOX’s programming (The Simpsons, Glee, House, etc), or else hope that Cablevision and FOX can come to some kind of agreement over the carriage fees sometime soon.
Mike Hopkins, President, Fox Networks Affiliate Sales and Marketing was quoted in Fox’s press release as saying the following:
“In an effort to avoid this very situation, we started this process in May and made numerous reasonable proposals to Cablevision. However, we remain far apart and Cablevision has made it clear that they do not share our view regarding the value of Fox’s networks. After days of posturing and the appearance of negotiating, they formally stopped even the pretense of negotiating at 8pm – declaring an “impasse” – and made no further efforts toward reaching a new agreement before the expiration.” Hopkins also said, “We remain willing to negotiate and hope that future talks ultimately will be productive, but as of now Cablevision has declined to counter our most recent proposal. Regrettably, their efforts were focused more on calls for government intervention than constructive negotiations.”
The statement goes on to state that Cablevision spent Friday refusing to engage in constructive bargaining. The network also assured fans that they will continue with the negotiations, so hopefully something will be worked out.
