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Cable TV Standoffs Threaten Viewing Costs, Choices
Many questions remain for cable TV viewers nationwide even after Fox and Time Warner Cable settled their noisy spat with a New Year's Day agreement.
The deal was good news for more than 6 million Time Warner customers in the short term: College bowl and National Football League games, "American Idol" and a host of other popular Fox programs in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Orlando, Fla., and other markets are appearing on their screens as usual.
Sharri Genens of Redondo Beach, Calif., was among the Time Warner customers who were relieved. She said she was extremely upset when she heard she might lose Fox.
"I would have dropped cable entirely if they'd done that," said Genens, 39. "I would have just gone to somebody else to pay more, done whatever I needed to do to get my shows" — including football.
Fox had threatened to force Time Warner Cable and Bright House to drop its signal from 14 of its TV stations and a half-dozen of its cable channels if Time Warner didn't increase payments to Fox in a contract that took effect Friday. The deal affects close to half its customers. Time Warner is the nation's second-largest cable provider after Comcast Corp.
But the companies are not talking about how the agreement will affect customers' bills. And the mood among cable providers, broadcasters and other content producers has not improved.
A less amicable ending in a separate programming dispute showed the downside of playing hardball.
Cablevision Systems Corp. customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut reacted angrily in more than 100 posts Friday and Saturday on the media and entertainment news site Deadline.com after about 3.1 million subscribers lost access Friday to HGTV and Food Network Friday.
Comments accused Cablevision and Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. — but mostly Cablevision — of greed and arrogance when they failed to reach agreement over a fee increase Scripps demanded.
The deal was good news for more than 6 million Time Warner customers in the short term: College bowl and National Football League games, "American Idol" and a host of other popular Fox programs in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Orlando, Fla., and other markets are appearing on their screens as usual.
Sharri Genens of Redondo Beach, Calif., was among the Time Warner customers who were relieved. She said she was extremely upset when she heard she might lose Fox.
"I would have dropped cable entirely if they'd done that," said Genens, 39. "I would have just gone to somebody else to pay more, done whatever I needed to do to get my shows" — including football.
Fox had threatened to force Time Warner Cable and Bright House to drop its signal from 14 of its TV stations and a half-dozen of its cable channels if Time Warner didn't increase payments to Fox in a contract that took effect Friday. The deal affects close to half its customers. Time Warner is the nation's second-largest cable provider after Comcast Corp.
But the companies are not talking about how the agreement will affect customers' bills. And the mood among cable providers, broadcasters and other content producers has not improved.
A less amicable ending in a separate programming dispute showed the downside of playing hardball.
Cablevision Systems Corp. customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut reacted angrily in more than 100 posts Friday and Saturday on the media and entertainment news site Deadline.com after about 3.1 million subscribers lost access Friday to HGTV and Food Network Friday.
Comments accused Cablevision and Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. — but mostly Cablevision — of greed and arrogance when they failed to reach agreement over a fee increase Scripps demanded.
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