So much press on the Time Warner Cable and Fox negotiations, that poor Scripps got little attention. And while a last minute deal closed to enable Fox to remain on air in Time Warner markets, HGTV and Food weren't as lucky. Cablevision pulled off the air all of Scripps' channels and viewers have been without going into a fourth day. For my family, fans of Food Challenge, House Hunters, and other shows, serious trouble. Luckily, we don't live in a Cablevision market.
"Since the signals were pulled, Cablevision has been continuously running a "customer" alert on the channel positions, featuring Scripps and the two networks' logos." At the same time, Time Warner is also out of contract with Scripps but has kept the networks on air during this same period. I am confident that in each case, Scripps will formalize a contract with each.
In the meantime, what does a customer do. For us, we would have been actively using our DVR to at least watch our shows. VOD would have dropped the network fare as well and left us out cold. Customers could contemplate switching providers; but note, eventually, networks will have to also renegotiate with telcos and dish and the same hardball tactics will be used again. The day of free over the air TV is gone. Networks want their subscription revenue and customers will either have to work through third party distributors until the day we simply buy our channels directly, a la carte, one at a time, over the web, for viewing in our home and on our approved devices.
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