Cablevision has done it again. In a fee dispute with FOX Broadcasting, the plug has been pulled in the NY area on Channels 5 & 9.

For baseball fans, this means they'll miss the first game of the NLCS series tonight (Giants at Phillies); for NFL fans, the unspeakable - no football GIANTS tomorrow afternoon.

They're claiming that FOX itself pulled the plug, but make no mistake - the greed of Cablevision's Dolan family knows no bounds. Cablevision can buy up FOX ten times over, so vast is their empire. Can you imagine - they actually have Rupert Murdoch by the balls and, once again, the viewers at their mercy.
Do not forget Cablevision's blackout of ABC/Disney, when broadcasting was restored twenty minutes into the Academy Awards broadcast.

Years ago, when the Yankees were mired in a slump, Madison Square Garden Corporation (under previous ownership) entered into a lucrative long-term contract with the Yankees for the rights to broadcast the team's telecasts on cable on the MSG Network. That contract eventually expired when the Yankees were riding the crest of prosperity. George Steinbrenner had taken those funds and built the Yankees into the juggernaut that they still maintain.

In the interim, Cablevision had purchased the MSG enterprise, including their cable networks. It was going to cost a billion dollars to renew the MSG contract with the Yankees, but Charles Dolan had another idea - why spend a billion dollars on a tv contract, when for the same amount of money he could buy the Yankees outright and broadcast them over the MSG Network that he owned? Dolan and Steinbrenner had numerous lunches and dinners to discuss the potential deal, during which Steinbrenner craftily picked his brain about what it took to run a cable sports network. Finally, Steinbrenner announced publicly that he would sell the team for a billion dollars - as long as he continued running the Yankees. This was balderdash to Charles Dolan and the negotiations came to a halt. Shortly thereafter, the Yankees announced the creation of the YES Network - they had created their own sports network to broadcast their games. Dolan was embarrassed and humiliated. His wrath was felt when the YES Network (and Yankee games) were blacked out from Cablevision for an entire season. The Dolans could care less who they enraged, including the fans (their own customers) - you don't mess with Charlie Dolan.
This is a guy who has long espoused that every sporting event should be broadcast on cable on a pay-per-view basis. His idiot son runs the Cablevision empire in title only - the father continues to call all the shots.

Let's see how this latest dispute plays out. Cablevision never blinks an eye when it comes to holding viewers hostage. It will all be resolved eventually, and then Cablevision's monthly rates will increase - not that they've ever needed an excuse to do that in the past. Money talks, bullsh*t walks.

A similar brawl has MSG and MSG+ off the Dish Network but to make up for it Dish is providing 12 regional sports networks from coast to coast as a freebie to make up for it until a settlement is reached. The Fox channels are still available with Dish under a different agreement that knocked it off Cablevision.

Fox is still on Directv. I heard the shameless ads on the radio put out by the Dolan's all week painting a picture of Cablevision being an innocent bystander in the dispute and fighting for their subscribers. Directv just gave us all the premium channels plus the Sunday ticket through February. I took them up on their offer but my only other option is to go with Dolan's Cablevision. I loathe Cablevision and all their sports teams too.

Dish is the best for horseplayers. The basic package gets you TVG and HRTV. I may have to switch to either cablevison or fios soon and both of these services look like money pits for couch potatoes. Both do not include TVG with their basic package and require you to upgrade to either the sports package or "extreme HD" if you want to watch some ponies. Cablevison does not even carry HRTV. None of the them carry OTB TV where I live either. For $35 a month nothing beats DISH.

The blockade of FOX is two weeks old now.

Cablevision took a calculated risk when they denied the public of the World Series - they figured the Yankees were out of it and fewer customers in the NY area would care about a Phillies/Giants contest. Had the Yankees been there, the dispute probably would have been settled last week, though it's difficult to be certain of this, given the Dolans hatred of the Yankees for past perceived insolence.

However, Sunday has the Jets on FOX. Jets Nation is drooling to see their team following a two-week hiatus due to the bye. Most Jets fans reside on Long Island, where Cablevision has had a monopoly since the beginning of time. The Dolans' backs are against the wall. They have likely received any number of subscription cancellations since the blockade began - which they can absorb with impudence - but an uprising by Jets fans will lead to outright rebellion. I see the stalemate being resolved just before game time.

It doesn't really matter when this entire matter arrives at a resolution - monthly rates will rise in any case. You'll never see public officials coming to the aid of consumers where cable company rates are concerned - they've all been bought off. There is no competition among the local cable providers - they are granted outright franchises.

Last year, my pal Jerry phoned Cablevision when his most recent cable bill went up a couple of dollars. "Why did you raise my monthly cable bill?" he protested to a company rep. "Because we can", she responded with the utmost conceit.

And finally, soon after Michael Bloomberg was elected to his first term as Mayor of New York City, he fielded this protest from a citizen during a radio call-in show: "There's no competition among cable companies. The rates are too high". "Don't watch tv" was the billionaire Mayor's response.

We are going on about a month with no MSG on Dish. This is a complete garbage channel but they do have NYRA replays and an occasional fight that I like to watch. I guess if want to watch the Jets you have no choice but to leave the house.