AT&T U-verse customers may have to do without these shows if an agreement cannot be reached with Rainbow Media

AT&T U-verse customers may lose access to three basic cable networks in less than two days if a dispute over how much money AT&T should pay for the networks isn’t settled.

Rainbow Media’s AMC, We TV, and the Independent Film Channel are all threatened with removal from AT&T’s nationwide U-verse lineup as a two week extension of carriage negotiations appears to be going nowhere.

In an ironic “now the shoe is on the other foot” twist, Rainbow Media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cablevision Industries — the cable system serving parts of downstate New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  AT&T is using some of the same language Cablevision used earlier this year in a dispute over fees charged by Scripps’ Food Network and HGTV, as well as Disney-owned WABC-TV in New York.  Rainbow even borrowed a page from Scripps and launched an AT&T protest site, Facebook page and Twitter account.

“AT&T is acting in an aggressive manner that puts their corporate interests ahead of their customers,” AMC said in a statement. “We are negotiating in good faith with AT&T and are hopeful that we can reach an agreement as soon as possible so that our viewers don’t lose out.”

Meanwhile, AT&T is publicly insulting Rainbow’s cable networks.

“Based on aggregate data we obtained from third party industry sources and our own subscribers, some of the Rainbow channels are among the least-watched and most overpriced per viewer compared to other major programming providers,” an AT&T spokeswoman told Deadline. “They’re also trying to force the renegotiation of a contract for one of their other channels that is not yet expired and force us to carry a new channel that wasn’t even formally presented to us until after the recent July 1 contract extension. We want our customers to know that we can’t and won’t give in to unreasonable deals that unfairly disadvantage our customers.”

Despite AT&T’s bravado, Rainbow may have the upper hand with a more aggressive outreach campaign.  AT&T’s website for U-verse has not mentioned the dispute — a potential PR mistake if it wants to argue its position about programming costs.

Bresnan Communications, the nation’s 13th largest cable operator with 308,000 customers in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, has been sold to Cablevision for $1.36 billion dollars — $4,300 a subscriber — well above the asking price of one billion dollars, including the company’s debt obligations.

Providence Equity Partners Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island, majority owner of Bresnan unloaded the cable company to help boost its earnings for clients.  Private equity firms like Providence have been suffering in the current economic climate, turning in their worst returns since 2000.  Many are selling off holdings to pay investors.

Bresnan spokesman Shawn Beqaj said the sale had nothing to do with founder William Bresnan’s death last November at age 75.

Bresnan, 30 percent owned by Comcast, today specializes in providing service in the sparsely populated mountain west states that have been ignored by larger companies.  At least 44 percent of Bresnan’s business is in Montana, where 688 of the company’s 1,300 employees work.  But the company’s founder, William Bresnan didn’t start out providing service in any of the states where the company operates today.

The acquisition by Cablevision, known mostly for its suburban New York City-area cable systems, would bring Bresnan’s current owners a considerable bonus over the asking price, and Cablevision (and the debt-financing banks) will pay in cash.

Other bidders included Suddenlink and a company controlled by former cable czar Dr. John Malone.

Cablevision managed to leverage the deal with less than $400 million of its own equity, financing the remaining $1 billion dollars between Citigroup and Bank of America Merrill Lynch in non-recourse debt.  That means if Cablevision’s buyout of Bresnan falters, the banks can only recoup their losses by seizing and selling the acquired Bresnan systems.  They can’t go after Cablevision’s other cable systems or sports ventures to make up the difference.

Considering Bresnan subscribers in the Northern Rockies face little prospect of robust competition, and Bresnan cable broadband can easily exceed broadband speeds offered by telephone rival Qwest, most analysts expect few problems from the deal.

CNBC explains the Bresnan-Cablevision Deal.  (3 minutes)

Bresnan Founder’s Story Is Echoed Across the Entire Cable Industry

The late William Bresnan -- Founder, Bresnan Communications

Bresnan’s journey through the cable industry over several decades tells the story of the often-ruthless deal-making, horse-trading, and customer-financed  mergers and acquisitions starting after cable deregulation in 1984.  Rates spiked to pay ever-increasing sums to buy and sell cable properties.  To own a cable system, it was said in the late 1980s, was a license to print money.

Bresnan’s involvement in the cable industry began with a job in the engineering department of a midwestern cable company and moved into management at a number of companies, most now long-gone after waves of consolidation.  Those with cable television dating back to the 1970s may even recall some of the names:

H&B American Cablevision: Operator of rural cable systems, most with around 12 channels, offering residents clear reception of over-the-air television signals.  They had a loyal customer base, stable earnings, but little potential for growth.

TelePrompTer: The nation’s largest urban and suburban cable operator through much of the 1970s, but a 1972 bribery scandal for a cable franchise agreement in Trenton, N.J., lead to bribery and perjury charges for TelePrompTer’s principal owner, Irving Berlin Kahn.  The famous songwriter’s nephew ordered the company to spend nearly everything to help mount his defense.  The TelePrompTer scandal would ultimately force the company to sell itself to…

Group W Cable: Westinghouse acquired the financially-troubled TelePrompTer in 1981.  Group W itself would exit the business by 1986 with an acquisition feeding frenzy among four other cable operators — American Television and Communications Corp.; Tele-Communications Inc.; Comcast Corp. and Daniels & Associates Inc.  Ironically, only Comcast would survive merger-mania intact.  ATC systems eventually became a part of Time Warner Cable.  TCI systems were acquired by Comcast.  Daniels was itself a buyer and seller of cable systems.

Bresnan Communications was founded in 1984, not in the mountain west, but in the upper peninsula of Michigan where Bresnan acquired and ran several small cable systems thanks to the help of cable czar Dr. John Malone, CEO of Tele-Communications, Inc., (TCI).  Millions of Americans are familiar with TCI’s own journey through consolidation, first becoming AT&T Broadband and then later as a part of Comcast.

Over the next 14 years, Bresnan expanded operations with Malone’s help.  At one point Bresnan jointly operated cable systems with TCI in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Georgia and Mississippi serving approximately 660,000 customers. The company even bought cable systems in post-Communist Poland and in Chile, the latter eventually sold outright to TCI.

Bresnan Customers Benefit from Founder’s Technical Background

What set Bresnan Communications apart from the rest of the smaller players in the industry was the founder’s in-depth understanding of cable technology.  Bresnan understood where the industry was going, and had an insatiable appetite for new technology that would also leverage additional growth in the business.

Bresnan spent heavily to upgrade his cable systems, deploying the hybrid fiber-coaxial cable architecture (HFC) in 1997 which is still in use at most cable systems today.  HFC would set the stage for Bresnan to compete with satellite television’s multi-hundred channels, and would let him sell telephone and broadband service to his customers.

That was unprecedented for smaller cable operators.  In the 1990s, it was still common to find small cable systems running only a few dozen channels.  If these legacy cable systems didn’t upgrade, DISH and DirecTV could eat them for lunch.  For those that would raise the necessary money, upgrades were performed.  For those that couldn’t, many would exit the business, selling their cable systems to larger, better-equipped enterprises.

Buy Low, Sell High

Beyond anything else, Bresnan was a businessman.  He had a track record of acquiring cable systems at fire sale prices and selling them for a tidy profit.  So during the height of the dot.com boom, he could hardly ignore a 1999 call from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.  Flush with cash to spend, Allen saw cable systems as a key component of his dream for a “wired world.”  Cable companies owned dozens of networks brimming with content that he believed could help drive people to broadband.  Owning both the content and the pipeline to deliver it could drive up the value of both, and Allen could control both.  He had already established himself as owner of Charter Communications, itself a medium-sized cable operator.

Allen’s cable acquisition shopping spree inflated values of cable systems to all-time highs, finally reaching nearly $5,000 per subscriber in crazed bidding wars.  Allen offered $3.1 billion dollars for Bresnan’s small cable empire.  Bresnan sold.

Bresnan Communications Recreated

By 2003, the dot.com boom was well over and done with, and those high-spending online tycoons saw the value of their acquisitions and enterprises erode away.  For Allen, his much-treasured vision had become a cash-sucking albatross.  Charter Communications’ stock by then had lost 95 percent of its original value.  Consumer protection regulation had also arrived in 2003, putting a stop to subscriber rate increase-fueled bidding wars.  Cable rates had risen 61 percent from the time the industry was deregulated in 1984 until legislative relief took effect in early 2003.  When the Money Party ended, stock prices for cable operators crashed.

Bresnan saw the deflation in the industry as an opportunity to buy his way back in, and started shopping.  That year AT&T Broadband, formerly TCI, found itself considering an acquisition offer from rival Comcast.  AT&T owned cable systems large and small, several of which were in the Northern Rockies, hardly cable’s fast lane.  While Comcast had big plans for AT&T cable systems in larger areas, it would be willing to part with smaller systems acquired as part of the deal.

By the time Bresnan arrived with an offer in hand, cable system values dropped further, and his bid for the roughly 300,000 subscribers that comprise today’s Bresnan Communications would be accepted at the fire sale price of $2,100 per subscriber.

Since the acquisition, Bresnan upgraded its systems, offering speeds up to 15/1 Mbps in its rural service area and maintains a reputation in the industry for running well-managed cable operations.

As predicted, Cablevision and Disney-owned WABC-TV New York reached a settlement of their dispute over retransmission fees, returning WABC-TV to more than three million Cablevision subscribers minutes after the start of the Academy Awards telecast.

WABC released a statement indicating a tentative agreement had been reached:

“ABC7 and Cablevision have 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. Given this movement, we’re pleased to announce that ABC7 will return to Cablevision households while we work to complete our negotiations.”

Details of agreement were not released, but many expect WABC-TV will be paid 50-60 cents per month per Cablevision subscriber.

“It is a deal that is fair to our customers and in line with our other programming agreements,” Cablevision spokesman Charles Schueler said. “We are very grateful to our customers for their support and pleased to welcome ABC back.”

WABC-TV officially returned 8:43 pm Sunday, Cablevision said. The awards show began at 8:30 pm.

Cablevision characterizes the dispute as a "TV tax" on its subscribers

More than three million Cablevision subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are without their local ABC station as another retransmission fee dispute reached an impasse late Saturday night.

WABC-TV, the top-rated television station in New York went dark on Cablevision customer screens Sunday morning, potentially depriving cable customers access to tonight’s Academy Awards telecast.

“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,” WABC-TV president and general manager Rebecca Campbell said in a statement.

The station says it sent Cablevision a new proposal earlier today, but Cablevision had not yet responded.

Cablevision argues it already pays $200 million dollars a year for Disney-owned cable networks like ESPN, and WABC’s request for what the company characterizes as $1 per month per subscriber is too much.

Cablevision is telling subscribers “it is wrong for ABC to demand $40 million in new fees to help pay the salaries and bonuses for top ABC executives” and characterizes the additional fees as a “TV tax.”  That argument might have some sway had Cablevision not recently agreed to some hefty pay raises and bonuses for its own management, while customers faced another rate increase.

Coming just two months after another high profile dispute between the cable operator and Scripps’-owned Food Network and HGTV, some Cablevision subscribers have had enough.

Stop the Cap! reader Jen said she ordered Verizon FiOS for her Long Island home as soon as she heard about the dispute.

“We’ve been here before and I just knew these guys would not get serious about negotiations until after the station was pulled, and I’m tired of them playing with my lineup arguing over who gets my money,” Jen writes.  “Verizon FiOS had a great sign-up offer and they don’t have these bull-headed disputes that drag customers into the middle of the ring to get repeatedly gored.”

Jen’s service was installed Friday, so she’s enjoying tonight’s Oscar telecast while her neighbors might not.

“Maybe we’ll have them over so they don’t have to play around with rabbit ears,” she adds.

Cablevision has been hounded by politicians who are also annoyed with programming disputes.  Cablevision says it would agree to binding arbitration and wants the Federal Communications Commission to intervene.  Both possibilities are highly unlikely, however.

What is likely is the high profile Academy Awards broadband will act as a de facto deadline for the two sides to hammer out a final agreement in time to allow WABC back on the lineup.  Most likely, both sides will settle around the 50-60 cent range for New York’s channel seven.

WABC-TV New York tells viewers Cablevision dropped channel 7 early Sunday morning after negotiations failed to resolve a dispute over fees. (2 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Cablevision Dispute WABC 3-5-10.flv

Cablevision is running this message for subscribers explaining the loss of WABC-TV from the cable lineup. (3 minutes)

Cablevision subscribers: Just two months after facing the loss of HGTV and the Food Network, get ready to lose WABC-TV — the ABC affiliate in New York, just hours before the Oscars telecast is set to begin.

Cablevision’s contract with Disney-owned WABC-TV will expire March 7th, and both sides have not reached an agreement.

The dispute centers around retransmission rights fees.  Currently, WABC permits Cablevision to carry its channel on their lineup for free.  But now the station wants to be paid.  WABC claims Cablevision earns $18 million a month from its broadcast basic lineup of mostly-local channels, and it’s time to share a portion of that with the station.

Cablevision has so far not agreed to the asking price.

“Cablevision’s position is that ABC7 is worth little to nothing to its business and its proposed offers have been consistently unreasonable and unrealistic,” said Rebecca Campbell, president and general manager of WABC-TV. “We think these shows are valuable, and your bill shows that Cablevision must agree since you already pay for ABC7 as part of your Broadcast Basic Tier – a service for which, as a Cablevision customer, you pay as much as $18 each month.  Cablevision charges you for ABC7 and then keeps all the money.”

WABC has started a website to educate customers how to drop Cablevision and switch to a competitor such as Verizon FiOS, or get access to the station over-the-air.

Cablevision fired back accusing ABC of asking consumers to pay a TV tax amounting to $40 million that would have to be passed onto subscribers in another rate increase.

“It is not fair for ABC-Disney to hold Cablevision customers hostage by forcing them to pay what amounts to a new TV tax,” said Charles Schueler, Cablevision executive vice president.

Both sides indicate negotiations are continuing, and some compromise may still be reached before the deadline.

WABC-TV is running this 30-second ad telling viewers about the dispute with Cablevision, along with stories on their newscasts. (4 minutes)

While the United States argues over broadband speeds, pricing, and usage limits, a broadband speed war is breaking out in Mexico which could deliver millions of Mexicans better broadband service at lower prices than what providers in the United States and Canada offer many of their customers.

The first shot came from Telmex, owned by media tycoon Carlos Slim.  They announced a more than doubling of their company’s DSL speed from the current 2-4Mbps to more than 10Mbps.

Telmex is Mexico’s leading Internet Service Provider, and typically bundles its broadband service with a calling package.  Telmex currently sells up to 5Mbps service, bundled with a phone line with unlimited local and long distance calling, plus 200 minutes of free calling to the United States, other calling features, free wi-fi access in more than 120,000 locations, and a free wireless modem/router for approximately $78 a month.  New subscribers get a bond worth approximately $39 when they sign up for service.

Televisa’s Cablevision, a cable provider, announced over the weekend it would match Telmex.

“Cablevision will offer this year more than 10Mbps service across Mexico City and surrounding areas at very affordable prices,” Televisa Executive Vice President Alfonso de Angoitia tweeted.

Televisa has been playing catch-up to Telmex, but the cable company’s “triple-play” phone, broadband, and video package has been attracting considerable attention.  The Mexican authorities currently prohibit Telmex from offering video to customers because of market domination fears.

Cablevision standalone pricing for their current 2Mbps service is about $23 a month with a term contract.  Additional discounts are provided for bundled service — $40.33 a month for both broadband and telephone service.

The price war broke out because of anemic growth in the landline telephone business, and the potential revenue expanded broadband service packages could bring Mexican providers.

A selection of ads from Cablevision and Telmex. (3 minutes)

The battle between Cablevision and Scripps over the carriage of two popular cable channels has been resolved, but customers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are now wondering where their refunds are for three weeks of interrupted viewing.

“Why are we paying for two channels they’re not delivering,” asks Stop the Cap! reader Alvira in New Jersey.  Many others are wondering the same thing, now that Cablevision is billing customers for January service that delivered an incomplete cable lineup.

The town supervisor of Ramapo, in Rockland County, New York, is demanding rebates for customers.

“We want a refund,” said Christopher St. Lawrence.  “We have over 10,000 [customers] right here in the town of Ramapo.”

WABC-TV New York reports on customer demands for refunds from Cablevison. (2 minutes)

The resolution over the carriage dispute came last week, after negotiations finally achieved an agreement restoring the channels.

“This is the resolution everyone wanted, and to have achieved anything less would have been a profound disappointment,” said John Lansing, executive vice president of Scripps.

Scripps had demanded about 75 cents per month from each subscriber for the two networks.  Cablevision formerly paid 25 cents per month.  In the end, industry watchers suggest the two companies ended up agreeing on about 45 cents per month.

A Torrington man wants a law empowering consumers to charge their cable companies “rent” for allowing their unwanted cable boxes to stay in customers’ homes.

“I’ve got to keep it warm, I’ve got to feed it electricity. If anything happens to it, I’ve got to pay $175,” Stephen Simonin shared with the regulatorily-toothless Litchfield County Cable Television Advisory Council.  “It’s absolutely insane,” he said before being elected chairman of the Council.

The Republican-American covered the converter box debacle, and the ongoing dispute between Cablevision and Scripps-owned HGTV and Food Network, thrown off the cable lineup on New Year’s Day.

The growing variety and intensity of disputes between consumers and largely deregulated cable operators may signal a growing backlash against the cable industry and its potential for a more regulated future.

In the absence of regulation, Simonin said, “it is like the wild west.”

Simonin lodged official complaints about his converter box long before his wife began griping about the absence of Food Network from the family television. State regulators are equally powerless to force cable companies to provide content without converter boxes, or specific channel offerings, as are the various cable advisory councils.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate, said he opposed the federal law that deregulated the cable television industry in 1996, and continues to oppose it.

“I have said again and again and again over the years, Congress not only stripped states of their power to effectively protect consumers, but also failed to provide for federal protections,” Blumenthal said. There “really is no effective oversight or scrutiny.”

Telecommunications company-owned equipment, and the rental fee income earned from it, can occasionally be a source for profit-padding, especially when providers don’t allow customers to purchase and own their own equipment.  Television sets were supposed to be designed to accommodate digital cable transmissions without a required converter box as the country adopted new digital television-capable sets, but consumer experiences with a cable-box-free CableCARD plug-in cards have been mixed.

“The situation is infinitely more complicated than that suggests,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO of Media Access Project. Schwartzman said about 90 percent of the televisions currently in use do not have the capability Simonin describes, though he agrees “companies like Cablevision are, in fact, monopolizing the set top box to their benefit.”

Schwartzman said the FCC has promised prompt review of a petition filed two weeks ago that demands consumers be allowed to purchase a converter box from a third party, rather than be forced to rent a box from their cable provider.

“This is a very active issue right now,” Schwartzman said.

Negotiations between Scripps and Cablevision continue to drag on in the northeast as New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey Cablevision cable subscribers go without their HGTV and Food Network.

Progress has been incremental at best as Cablevision continues to refuse to accept paying the increased fees Scripps wants.  Cablevision’s declaration that is expects to never carry Scripps programming again doesn’t help.

Meanwhile, Food Network president Brooke Johnson has been running from one news channel to another to talk about Scripps’ position on the dispute, and that “hundreds of thousands” of viewers have complained about the loss of their two networks, a number Cablevision disputes.

Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield, who covers the cable industry, defended Cablevision, giving credit to the Dolan family that owns Cablevision for standing up to Scripps’ rate increase request.

Greenfield accused Comcast and Time Warner Cable of “essentially rolling over” in their negotiations with Scripps, agreeing to price hikes for their networks, an allusion to Time Warner Cable’s campaign to fight back against programmer price increases.

If those cable companies “had taken a far harder stance with Scripps, Cablevision’s pushback may actually have forced Scripps’ hand,” Greenfield wrote.

Still, most viewers could care less about the power plays between cable and the programmers.  They just want their HGTV and Food Network back.

WCBS-TV New York ran these two reports during their 6pm and 11pm newscasts describing the battle between Scripps and Cablevision, and consumer reaction.  (4 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTNH New Haven Cablevision Dispute 1-7-10.flv

Same story, different city as WTNH-TV viewers in New Haven, Connecticut share their views on the dispute.  (2 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Brooke Johnson Cablevision Scripps Dispute 1-4-10.flv

Food Network president Brooke Johnson appeared on CNBC to take questions about the dispute and changing business model of cable TV and programmers.  (5 minutes)

Johnson also turned up on Fox Business News to discuss the dispute, how negotiations are going, and how viewers are reacting.  (6 minutes)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Brooke Johnson Cablevision Dispute 1-4-10.flv

…And Johnson also appeared on Bloomberg News accusing Cablevision of paying themselves top dollar for AMC, a network they own, while refusing to negotiate over a price increase for the “more popular” HGTV and Food Network amounting “to pennies per subscriber.”  (6 minutes)

Cablevision, the nation’s fifth largest cable operator, yanked Food TV and HGTV from suburban New York cable systems early this morning in another fight over programming fees.

The two popular cable channels, owned by Scripps Networks, were “no longer authorized” to be shown to Cablevision customers after the two companies failed to reach an agreement over what the cable operator should pay per month for the two networks.

Perhaps overshadowed by the bigger profile Time Warner Cable-Fox dispute which impacts cable customers across the country, the fight between Cablevision and Scripps has been nasty even by the standards of knockdown, drag-out fights characterizing most of these contract spats.

Cablevision characterized Scripps as “financially troubled” in its own account for the press this morning:

“We are sorry that Scripps’ current financial difficulties are making it impossible for them to continue our relationship on terms that are reasonable for Cablevision and our customers,” the company said in a statement. “We wish Scripps well and have no expectation of carrying their programming again, given the dramatic changes in their approach to working with distributors to reach television viewers.”

That’s about as final as it gets, as the cable operator signals it’s done haggling over prices, at least for now.

Cablevision has a website of its own to explain the decision to drop the two networks

As usual, customers are caught in the middle in an advertising and PR war back and forth.

This morning, Cablevision customers found this message running on the channels formerly occupied by HGTV and Food Network.

Scripps has set up websites for consumers to get their take on the matter, and has also taken to running some 30-second ads of its own, along with network personalities giving their testimony about why the channels are going to be missed.  I Love HGTV and I Love Food Network largely mirror each other’s content in a blog format.  Scripps argument for Food Network, which basically also applies to HGTV:

1. Food Network is among the most popular brands on television, consistently ranking among the Top 10 networks in cable and satellite. In fact, Food Network attracted record numbers of viewers in 2009.
2. Cablevision does not pay Food Network comparably to what it pays other Top 10 networks; yet it pays some networks that deliver substantially smaller audiences significantly more for their programming.
3. The rates currently paid to Food Network by Cablevision are among the lowest in the industry. In 2009, Food Network is 75^th of the 79 Nielsen-rated cable and satellite networks in terms of average rates received from distributors per subscriber. (Source: Kagan Research)
4. Cable subscribers on the whole, responding to the 2009 Beta Subscriber Study, said Food Network is worth $1.03 per month, which is considerably more than Cablevision is paying for the network’s programming and more than Food Network is asking in the current contract negotiations.
5. Cablevision customers pay an average subscription rate of $83 per month. The monthly fee Cablevision pays for Food Network is a small fraction of that figure.

Scripps fires back with its own ad alerting Cablevision subscribers to call and ask for HGTV and Food Network back on their lineup.

Judging from the comments left on both of Scripps’ sites, consumers know they are stuck in the middle and many are not thrilled with either party.  Some of the comments:

Each of you blames the other, but it’s probably a lot of both, and we, the viewers, are the real losers.  Thanks a lot to both Cablevision and Scripps. You’re just like the Republicans and Democrats — neither side seems to understand the meaning of or necessity for compromise to benefit the masses. Have a wonderful New Year.

You guys are schmucks. You waited until the very last minute, on New Years Eve, to tell everyone about this before launching your stupid campaign. You are using your customers to fight your battles, and are ultimately punishing all of them at the end of the day. And that’s pathetic.

YOU guys are the scumbags! You’re so greedy, I hope Cablevision snubs you. If Cablevision picks you back up at your hiked rate, we’ll be the ones paying an even higher bill, you idiots.
Thanks loads and happy new year to you, too. Greedy morons.

Whatever the disagreement is on funding, ultimately, it is us as the consumer who are paying the bill. My wife LIVES for the Food Network and would be willing to pay for it as a Premium channel. If that’s the road both sides want to take, both will lose out. Only a few like myself would be willing to pay extra for it……there will be other subscribers that could care less either way.

I turned on my TV this morning to watch the Rose Parade at 11 am and found an obnoxious rotating statement from Cablevision instead of the channel. I then went online to the web address they provided on screen and read their say -nothing statement that put the entire blame on Scripps networks. Instead of telling the customers there was a problem and asking what we would want to pay for these networks, they just yanked them. They are the most customer-unfriendly company I have seen, and it is not just from this action where I form this opinion.

We have enjoyed the FoodNetwork and HGTV but you deserve to be off Cablevision, there is no way your combined networks are worth almost $2 a month, 25 cents is about right. My cable bill is too high now, 2 bucks for what you have? Forget it, I will have to do it the old fashion way. We lived without you before and will live without you again.

To Cablevision, I have had my rates raised countless times over the past 10 years, and have nothing to show but more CRAP channels. I can’t watch NFL channel, I don’t get my hard to find football games because I am a fan of an out of area team, and now, I can’t watch the ONE CHANNEL that I regularly follow, FOOD Network. The fact that companies like you have spurned the “a-la-carte” system that would allow me to choose and pay for the channels I want (which I would gladly do for Food Network and HGTV) and instead want to keep your profit margin as large as possible is a testament to the corporate GREED that you embrace instead of a value based system. You can talk tough and try to put all of the blame on Scripps, but the truth is, you are both to blame.

Somehow, I don’t think this was the kind of reaction either company expected from customers who have wised up to who will ultimately pay to resolve this in the end.

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Vern Yip HGTV Cablevision.flv

HGTV’s Vern Yip speaks to Cablevision customers about how to get HGTV back on their cable lineup.  (30 seconds)

http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Guy Fieri on Food Network Being Dropped.flv

Food Network’s Guy Fieri is “blown away” with Cablevision’s decision to drop Food Network from the lineup. (30 seconds)