January 22, 2010 Food Network and HGTV Back Aboard Cablevision By BRIAN STELTER NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/business/media/22cable.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print The Iron Chef is back in Cablevision households. The cable distributor said Thursday that it had signed a new deal with Scripps Networks, restoring two popular cable channels, the Food Network and HGTV, to the television lineups of about three million homes in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The agreement ends an unusually long blackout of the two networks that began on New Year’s Day over how much Cablevision should pay for the right to carry the channels. Any cost increases are usually passed along to customers in the form of higher monthly cable bills. The absence of the two channels brought customer complaints to both companies. The fast-growing Food Network, which features “Iron Chef America” and other culinary-themed content, and HGTV, which features shows like “Dream Home,” returned to the Cablevision lineups almost immediately after the deal was reached Thursday afternoon, customers said. Both sides professed to be satisfied with the outcome. In a statement, John Bickham, Cablevision’s president of cable and communications, thanked customers for their patience “as we worked with Scripps to reach an agreement that is fair.” John Lansing, the executive vice president of Scripps Networks Interactive, called Cablevision a “valued distribution partner” and said, “We’re gratified that together we were able to reach a successful conclusion that will benefit their customers and viewers of our networks.” The companies declined to comment on details of the new agreement. Scripps was reportedly demanding about 25 cents a month per subscriber for the Food Network, which typically earned about 8 cents a month in earlier deals with distributors. It wanted a smaller increase for HGTV, which earned closer to 13 cents on average. Cablevision rebuffed Scripps, saying that it had to hold the line on cost increases. Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at Pali Capital, said Cablevision was right to fight over rises in what the industry calls carriage fees. “Carriage disputes are getting uglier,” he said. “But where you have leverage you need to take a stand.” Mr. Greenfield added, “The industry needs a spine to fight rapidly escalating costs.” For the last three weeks, the only beneficiaries in the financial squabble were the other distributors that sought to sign up Cablevision subscribers who were angered by the loss of the two cable networks. Before the deal was announced Thursday, Richard Young, a spokesman for Verizon FiOS, said, “Each and every day we’re adding many, many new customers as a direct result of this dispute.” Mr. Young said many customers had indicated informally that the absence of Food Network and HGTV had given them “another big reason” to switch. Cablevision said the customer losses were minimal. Two other rivals, DirecTV and Dish Network, declined to comment. Scripps, meanwhile, remains in fee negotiations with Time Warner Cable. That contract also expired Dec. 31, but Scripps has decided not to remove its channels from Time Warner Cable’s systems while it continues to demand higher fees. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
