Fox Business pulled from Cablevision

Kevin Coy of News on News reports that Fox Business Network has been yanked off the air for 3 million Cablevision subscribers in a contract dispute between the two companies.

Coy writes, “Cablevision has called on News Corp to restore the services and submit to binding arbitration under a neutral third party to reach a fair agreement.

“Charles Schueler, Cablevision’s executive vice president of communications, said: ‘News Corp.’s decision to remove Fox programming from three million Cablevision households is a black eye for broadcast television in America.  News Corp has refused to negotiate in good faith and rejected calls from dozens of political leaders to not pull the plug and join Cablevision in binding arbitration.  We demand that News Corp. put the viewers ahead of its own greed and immediately restore these channels to our customers and agree to binding arbitration to reach a fair agreement.  What is News Corp. afraid of?’

“Cablevision said that it had accepted an offer on Friday from the Federal Communications Commission to mediate in the dispute, however News Corp declined the offer.

“In a statement, A Fox spokesman said, “We are declining mediation and binding arbitration.'”

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