AfterDawn: News

Scripps pulls channels from Cablevision

Scripps Networks Interactive has pulled its popular Food Network and HGTV channels from Cablevision, after the two companies could not agree to carriage fees.

Cablevision is a smaller cable company, with only 3.1 million subscribers in New York and New Jersey, but the move mirrors that of the recent, larger fight between Time Warner and Fox (News Corp.)



Scripps says the cable provider is not properly compensating it for the channels, and has an active media campaign trying to get consumers to complain about the channels being removed.

"The distribution rates Cablevision pays for Food and HGTV are among the lowest in the industry," added Scripps CEO Kenneth Lowe.

"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," responded Cablevision. "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."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 4 Jan 2010 15:41

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• 10 comments

• 5fdpfan

  Haha! From the looks of this article is apparent that Cablevision isn't all that concerned with missing Scripps' content.

  4.1.2010 18:29 #1

• xnonsuchx

  Originally posted by 5fdpfan: Haha! From the looks of this article is apparent that Cablevision isn't all that concerned with missing Scripps' content.It's just a tactful PR response to make it sound (to their customers) that it's all the other party's fault. It's always the cable/satellite company that bears the brunt of customer complaints about missing channels, so they'll likely cave in the near future as complaints rise and some switch over to DirecTV/Dish in protest.

  4.1.2010 19:29 #2

• oscarin

  Cablevision is running a monopoly in the New York/New Jersey area and the real losers are we the people who are paying a lot each month to get crappy customer service and the ''free'' HD channels that are no more than standard definition channels streched out all over my tv screen, you could get a better picture if you plug a pair of regular rabbit ears than getting a hd cable box from cablevision in the NY/NJ area i.e. univision, bravo, a&e

  4.1.2010 23:31 #3

• DVDBack23

  Originally posted by oscarin: Cablevision is running a monopoly in the New York/New Jersey area and the real losers are we the people who are paying a lot each month to get crappy customer service and the ''free'' HD channels that are no more than standard definition channels streched out all over my tv screen, you could get a better picture if you plug a pair of regular rabbit ears than getting a hd cable box from cablevision in the NY/NJ area i.e. univision, bravo, a&eI actually happen to disagree here. I've had nothing but good CS here in the Bronx, and for $24 a month for cable, the price is very decent, especially part of the triple package with FAST internet, and home phone for $100 overall. I will say that my Scientific Atlanta box is very slow and I wish they would upgrade to new ones.

  5.1.2010 00:33 #4

• fangfang

  spam removed

  5.1.2010 01:41 #5

• emugamer

  I can't complain about the service of Cablevision in the upper NY area. Just the price now. I enjoyed the 3 for $100 package deal for a year and was told that the price will go up slightly after the promotion. Mine was jacked up to $180/month. On top of that, on the morning of January 1st, I go to turn on the Food Network with my cup of coffee (which is first the channel that I go to about 85% of the time), and I am met with that message screen. I was prety pissed. Needless to say, I am looking for an alternative package. Maybe keep my internet through them, but cancel cable TV and go to Dish for basic TV. See what packages I can mix and match to get the total below $180/month.
  
  I would've ate the extra $$$ per month if it weren't for their attitude about cancelling Skripps programming. I enjoy my Boost internet plan, HD programming and use of my DVR. I just feel it's a publicity stunt to open the doors to another rate hike. Their retention and sales department did tell me that if I presented them with a lower offer from Frontier, that they will negotiate the price I pay. We'll see.

  5.1.2010 12:03 #6

• IguanaC64

  Yeah...but the problem is that if they don't make a stand at least sometimes your bills just creep up and up. One of the worst offenders is ESPN in this regard. They tell cable companies that they have to buy ALL their ESPN channels if they just want standard ESPN. So you end up paying for all the various flavors of ESPN even if you didn't want ESPN in the first place.
  
  This is a grab for those channels to try and pull more money from you via your cable provider.

  7.1.2010 11:24 #7

• rick930

  The real irony here is that Scripps isn't in financial trouble, despite what Cablevision tries to claim in their bogus PR response. Cablevision is the one in financial trouble, which is why they keep jacking up their rates. You ever see those AT&T commercials where they talk about how cable has doubled their rates in the past decade? Well one of those major offending cable companies is Cablevision, who thinks that they can make up for losing award winning programming by simply making their subscribers pay more and give them less. Scripps didn't lose out in this move, Cablevision did. Watch how many customers they lose to satellite TV in this year alone. And the sad part about that is satellite TV is totally worthless to begin with, but as long as groups like Cablevision keep pulling brainless stunts like these and the subscribers don't call them to the mat for it, it'll just keep happening. And they wonder why they only have 3.1 million subscribers.

  7.1.2010 13:12 #8

• ninjakid

  The problem is the food network is one of the top 10 channels viewed on the cablevision system and they get compensation in the bottom 10% of all the channels on cablevision. They are asking a for a rate of a bit under 1.00 per user as a compensation fee and cablevision refuses to pay it. I don't know what the problem is with this, it is a good channel and since almost every month I find my cablevision bill going up 1 dollar this month 2 dollars the next month each and every month. They should just pay them the fee and lets get on with our lives.

  7.1.2010 22:14 #9

• emugamer

  Just dropped Cablevision's TV and VOIP plan. No point in making idle threats. They would not extend our promotion or offer any discount. They said they couldn't until at least 6 months passed from our old promotion, and even that is not certain. And we caught our sales rep in a lie. He stopped returning our calls and directed us to a department that doesn't exist. $180/month is not going to happen. And I can just see it going up again once they "work out a dedal" with Scripps. Going back to Dish for the basic TV plan.

  18.1.2010 12:35 #10