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TagsBY LINDA MOSS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Although both sides remain "far apart," Cablevision and News Corp. Wednesday will resume talks to try to settle their bitter dispute, which has deprived more than 900,000 New Jersey residents of three major Fox TV stations for four days now.
Representatives for the cable company and Rupert Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York, as well as WTXF in Philadelphia, "held a short phone call" Tuesday, according to News Corp.'s Fox.
"No material progress was made and we remain far apart," Fox said Tuesday. "Both sides agreed to continue talking tomorrow."
Today, Wednesday, the standoff between Cablevision and Fox is in its fifth day. In a dispute over how much money Cablevision should pay to carry Fox's three TV stations, the broadcaster yanked its broadcast outlets as well as Fox Deportes, Fox Business Network and Nat Geo Wild at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Some 3 million Cablevision customers in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut are affected by the station blackout. More than 900,000 of the cable company's subscribers are in the Garden State.
Cablevision and Fox continue to run full page ads attacking each other, a fact that drew a comment Tuesday by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.
Saying that "the time for petty gamesmanship is over," the chairman said that the FCC will examine whether Cablevision and Fox are negotiating in good faith. If the FCC determines that they are not, it can intervene under the federal regulation known as retransmission consent.
Earlier Tuesday U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, sent a letter to Genachowski with draft legislation to protect consumers during disputes between broadcasters and cable providers.
"It's not our job to take sides, but it is our responsibility to help find a better way forward," Kerry said. "The goal of this legislation is to offer a path towards resolution that reforms a broken system and protects the consumers who get caught in the middle. I look forward to feedback from the FCC and collaboration and input from all stakeholders. This system today isn't working for anyone."
Kerry's legislation, which he intends to introduce in the upcoming "lame duck" session, would prevent television signals from being pulled until both broadcasters and cable companies have gone through a process with the FCC to ensure good-faith negotiations and consider arbitration as an option.
"Rather than take sides in a conflict of corporate interests, we can all agree that this system works least of all for consumers, the primary interest we represent in matters of public policy-making," Kerry wrote. "I hope you will agree that the current process — which forces all sides and particularly consumers into lousy choices — is broken and in need of reform. Currently, either party, sufficiently strong willed, can play a game of negotiating chicken with the consumer caught in the middle. It incentivizes conflict over negotiation."
Cablevision customers were unable to watch the Giants game on Sunday in their own homes, and they were not happy about that.
"The voices of angry consumers in this weekend's news coverage speak volumes," Kerry wrote. "Many football fans had to leave home, denied the service they faithfully pay for, and even bring their children to bars to watch the game."
On Tuesday Fox accused Cablevision, which owns networks such as MSG and MSG Plus, of hypocrisy for calling for the FCC to step in "and replace business-to-business negotiations with an arbitration process."
"Not only is this demand totally without merit, it is also the height of hypocrisy since just three weeks ago the Cablevision family submitted a filing with the FCC arguing against using arbitration or stand stills to resolve disputes!" Fox said in a statement.
"The filing was submitted as part of the Cablevision family's ongoing dispute with Dish Network regarding the MSG and MSG Plus channels," Fox said. "In that circumstance, Cablevision is very much against any sort of government intervention. The fact that hundreds of thousands of NY-area viewers have lost access to games of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils does not seem to trouble them when they're on the other side of the table."
But after Fox accused Cablevision of hypocrisy MSG put out a statement Tuesday claiming it was amenable to arbitration.
"MSG has never said we would not submit to binding arbitration," MSG said. "In fact, we are perfectly willing to go to binding arbitration to resolve this dispute with Dish Network."
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That prompted Fox to once again accuse Cablevision of hypocrisy and flip flopping.
"This is the first time MSG has ever suggested being open to binding arbitration with Dish Network or anyone else," Fox said. "This position is totally inconsistent with their own filings to the FCC and inconsistent with their own actions in denying hundreds of thousands of viewers access to Knicks, Rangers, Nets and Devils games. It is stunning to see how the Cablevision family will flip flop on any issue to achieve their transparent goal of making their own subscribers suffer long enough to force politicians to intervene."
Cablevision Tuesday continued its call for binding arbitration.
"Both parties have a position, but only Cablevision has joined with more than 50 government leaders with a solution, binding arbitration under the direction of a neutral third party," Cablevision executive vice president of communications Charles Schueler said in a statement. "By now it should be clear even to News Corp. that binding arbitration is the fastest and fairest way to return Fox programming to our customers."
