Will Cablevision's Dispute With ABC Cost Much of New York Area Their Mouse House Shows?
Three million Cablevision customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut could soon be without ABC's Channel 7, thanks to a messy financial dispute between Cablevision and the Disney-ABC Television Group over retransmission fees. Currently, ABC7 is reportedly offered for free, however the affiliate has asked Cablevision to start paying for their signal, a request which Cablevision has reportedly balked at. ABC has given Cablevision until March 7 to reach a deal, or it is set to pull its signal on March 8.
"Year after year, ABC7 is the most watched station in New York—and the country. Unfortunately, as of March 7, ABC7 may no longer be carried on Cablevision systems in Long Island, Westchester, Brooklyn, the Bronx and selected suburbs of Connecticut and New Jersey," said Rebecca Campbell, president and general manager of ABC7 in a press release. "For the past two years ABC7 has tried, without success, to reach an agreement with Cablevision to carry ABC7. Why? Because Cablevision’s position is that ABC7 is worth little to nothing to its business and its proposed offers have been consistently unreasonable and unrealistic. And that’s a shame. "
What's at stake is Cablevision viewers' ability to watch such popular series as Desperate Housewives, Dancing With The Stars, Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, and of course, the ABC Daytime lineup.
"ABC7 delivers some of the most popular programming carried on Cablevision today, shows like General Hospital, All My Children, One Life to Live, The View, Regis and Kelly, Oprah, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Dancing with the Stars, and so much more. We think these shows are valuable, and Cablevision’s bills show that they agree, since their customers already pay for ABC7 as part of the Broadcast Basic Tier, a service for which customers pay as much as $18 each month. What the bill doesn’t who is how much Cablevision pays ABC7 for these programs—nothing! That’s right, they charge customers for ABC7 then keep all the money," said Campbell.
Campbell went on to state ABC7 will keep trying to reach a deal with Cablevision prior to the deadline.
"ABC7 will continue to work with Cablevision to reach a fair agreement, but regardless of the outcome, ABC7 is available to those areas in New York through a variety of other providers as well as free, over the air."
For those Daytime Confidential.com readers in the New York area who want to let their opinions on the matter be heard, Campbell encourages you to visit www.saveABC7.com.
- Login or register to post comments
-
- Email this page
Comments
11 January 2010
2 days 4 hours
My first question is whether they pay CBS or NBC for their local channels? If not, ABC7 just needs to zip it.
27 November 2007
2 weeks 2 days
This is the same game that Scripps and Cablevision went through with FoodNetwork and HGTV
15 January 2009
8 hours 49 min
OH really on the other providers? I would love to know who that would be since Cablevision is the only cable company available to most of us. Or you can buy a stupid dish and pay through the nose for a signal that is poor most of the time. Or lets see, stick an antenna on my house. I am sick of these big companies sticking it to the rest of us with their money grubbing ways.
14 December 2008
3 days 1 hour
This is such a pain in the but tto everyone living and working in New york.
2 February 2010
3 weeks 6 days
Well, they did it.
I have Cablevision and live in the "affected" area. Just out of curiousity, I tuned in to ABC7 at midnight to see what would happen.
They were so melodramatic--they actually put a notice on the screen that said, "Cablevision has betrayed you." I was laughing my head off.
Here's my take on this: I've had Cablevision for about 10 years now and I have NEVER been unhappy with their service. Why should I switch to another provider because ABC7 believes they deserve more money than they get?
ABC7 trying to persuade us that this is some dire occurence is ludicrous. We have so many options available to us:
1) We can hook an antenna up to a spare TV and watch ABC7 for FREE
2) We can catch all of the ABC soaps on SOAPNet (which was not part of this dispute)
3) We can watch the popular primetime series on hulu.com for FREE
4) Many ABC shows are available for viewing on ABC.com (again for FREE)
5) If worst came to worst, fans of the primetime series would just have to be patient for a few months--their shows will be out on DVD once the season is over. I don't pay for the premium channels like Showtime and HBO but I can watch a lot of their shows for free by checking the DVDs out of my local library.
Didn't ABC7 learn anything from the recent dispute between Cablevision and Scripps Networks? If they didn't, that's unfortunate because the viewers did. Scripps pulled HGTV and The Food Network for about a week or so and then they were back.
It was a nice tactic: pull the station the morning of the Oscars. They probably figure that people will have a fit and sign up with another provider just so they can watch. But, in this day and age, with all of the coverage (pre-Oscar, post-Oscar, etc.) on all of the entertainment shows, who actually sits through the long-winded speeches anymore? Highlights are posted on YouTube within a day and anything worth seeing can be seen there.
Wake up, ABC7! It's TV, not drinking water. It's a pastime; we don't need it to survive and we'll get along just fine if you never air on Cablevision again. It'll be sad--but probably more for you than for us. A loss of 3 million viewers will probably mean a drop in advertising revenue that I doubt ABC7 can afford.