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TagsBY LINDA MOSS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Cablevision's 3.1 million customers, including 900,000 in New Jersey, got to watch most of the Oscars after all.
WABC-TV returned to Cablevision's lineup shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, shortly after the Academy Awards telecast started and 21 hours after it went black, when ABC Disney and the cable company reached a tentative new carriage deal. The Oscar telecast started at 8:30 p.m.
"We've made significant progress, and have reached an agreement in principle that recognizes the fair value of ABC7, with deal points that we expect to finalize with Cablevision," Rebecca Campbell, WABC-TV's president and general manager, said in a statement at about 8:50 p.m. "Given this movement, we're pleased to announce that ABC7 will return to Cablevision households while we work to complete our negotiations."
WABC-TV also ran a crawl on the Academy Awards show about 10 minutes to p.m. announcing that the station was coming back."We are happy to report that WABC Channel 7 has returned to Cablevision's 3 million New York area homes," Charles Schueler, the company's executive vice president of communications, said in a statement. "We are very grateful to our customers for their support and pleased to welcome ABC back."
The ABC Disney dispute was public and nasty, with both sides running full-page ads and on-air spots blasting each other.
ABC Disney pulled WABC-TV's signal from Cablevision's lineup at 12:01 a.m. Sunday after both parties failed to each an agreement on the compensation that the broadcaster was seeking for carriage of it TV station.
Under the federal regulation called retransmission consent, ABC Disney was seeking $40 million, or a $1 a month, per subscriber license fee, for Cablevision to carry WABC-TV.
Cablevision balked, saying it was already paying ABC Disney $200 million a year for programming, and that it did not want to pay for programming that was available over the air and on the Internet for free.
At about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, WABC-TV issued saying it had sent Cablevision a new offer.
"We have sent Cablevision a new proposal, and are awaiting their response," Campbell said. "If Cablevision is serious about doing right by their customers and returning ABC7 and its programming to them, then they need to act now. The ball is in their court."
Also Sunday, U.S. Senator John Kerry and other leading officials urged ABC Disney to restore ABC Disney to Cablevision customers and suggested arbitration to resolve the dispute. Cablevision agreed with that suggestion.
"Cablevision will agree to binding arbitration and calls upon Disney CEO Bob Iger to immediately return ABC to New York area viewers, and join us in binding arbitration to resolve this matter fairly," Schueler said. "We have communicated our position to the highest levels of the FCC and urged the agency to appropriately involve itself in this process."
Sunday Cablevision also picked up support from Sen. Craig M. Johnson, D-Nassau, New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey, New York Republican Leader Dean Skelos and New York State Sen. Craig Johnson.
At 5:50 p.m., Cablevision said it would offer free Video On Demand movies to all its iO TV Customers, a list that included Academy Award Best Picture Nominees "District 9," "The Hurt Locker" and "Up."
