New York Giants Game Blacked Out. World Series To Follow?

By Tony Mangia

CABLEVISION AND FOX BATTLE OVER FEES

If you are a NewYork Giants fan and missed yesterday's game against the Detroit Lions, you weren't alone. A fee dispute between Cablevision and the News Corp meant that the Fox network yanked channels 5 and My9 from the cable giant over the weekend.  Monday will mark the third day of the blackout.

The cable company looped a message blaming the "greed" of Fox for denying over three million subscribers access to the the Sunday afternoon Giants-Lions game and both Saturday and Sunday's Phillies-Giants NLCS games.  It is the longest station blackout in a large market and is threatening to carry over until the World Series.

Football fans flocked to bars all over new York City and New Jersey in order to catch the game.  Both sides in the dispute are using the pissed off fans as pawns in their battle for control.  Fox said Cablevision is already charging its viewers "for free, over-the-air broadcasting," while Cablevision said,"They want more for Fox than we pay CBS, NBC, ABC combined." Cablevision says it pays $70 million annually for the Fox stations and will now be gouged for $150 million a year.  They claim Fox is holding the NFL and baseball playoffs as hostages.

Fox countered by saying Cablevision is "hypocritical" and claims it charges other cable companies even more for its two MSG channels than it pays for 12 Fox stations.

Fox aired a commercial during the Jets game on CBS informing viewers that the blackout would likely last until at least the World Series--which begins on October 27.  For a while, on Saturday, the News Corp. temporarily blocked Cablevision's customers from accessing Fox shows on the video website hulu.com.

The battle lines have been drawn and both parties are set to meet today but said they remain "far apart.".  If these corporations think football are baseball fans are angry, just wait until the "Glee" contingent organizes and protests.  Nothing like a bunch of riled up 'tweens with their tweets and twitters to get things in motion.