Cablevision subscribers had to be subjected to screen blackout after dispute between News Corp. and the cable provider failed to be resolved. New York consists of three million subscribers and they were all disappointed when they woke up to black screens on Saturday morning following a blackout of Fox channels.

News Corp. and Cablevision met in a meeting in Midtown Manhattan to resolve the issue but no solution could be achieved which would please both the parties.

The dispute arose as Cablevision have accused Fox’s owner News Corp. of “corporate greed”, “extortion” and “outrageous demands”. Fox have also been charged to be “holding their own viewers hostage” during this dispute that has failed to produce any reasonable solution regarding the retransmission content.

The Federal Communications Commission is also trying to end the dispute and while Cablevision is ready to accept their offer, Fox have declined to accept the FCC’s arbitration. Fox wants a more direct approach from Cablevision to resolve this issue, and want to negotiate rather than go for arbitration.

According to Cablevision, Fox has been demanding an astounding amount of $150 million to retransmit Fox programming, otherwise FOX 5 will not be shown to viewers. News Corp. is demanding more money than any other broadcast channel and Cablevision blames greed, power and money to be the only reasons responsible for the uprising of these problems.

But because of the dispute, its a big loss not only for the two parties – Cablevision and News Corp but the actual losers are the general people who are unable to witness their favourite programs.
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