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I sent an angry email to mr. james dolan at james.dolan@cablevision.com and jamesdolan@cablevision.com regarding how upset my wife and I are and many of our friends that Food network and HGTV are no longer offered on cablevision. Apparently someone reads his emails because I got this response:
Dear Mr Quintano:
Mr. Dolan has forwarded your email and asked me to respond. Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding Scripps Networks. There are several important points that we want to share with you:
Cablevision offered Scripps the ability to continue delivering HGTV and Food Network to our customers while we negotiated a new agreement. This is common practice in the cable industry, and such an extension occurred in the recent dispute between Time Warner Cable and the Fox Network, ensuring no disruption of programming.
Cablevision did not take HGTV and Food Network off. Scripps took their own channels off and they did so without warning. We were as surprised as you were that they would take this sudden action– effectively holding their own viewers hostage in order to pursue dramatically higher fees.
This dispute is about huge fee increases that Scripps is seeking for HGTV and Food Network. They are looking for more than a 200 percent increase for their channels. In effect, Scripps Networks is asking Cablevision customers to bail them out of their financial difficulties. If every programming service demanded such increases, your cable bill would be astronomical. In fact, Cablevision’s cable rates are increasing by less than 4 percent this year, but the costs we are paying for programming are increasing at double that rate.
HGTV and Food Network claim to be in the top 10 most popular networks. In fact, they rank in the lower half of basic networks watched by Cablevision viewers. However, we do understand that it is important for us to carry all of the networks that our customers want us to carry, but we need to do so in a way that does not dramatically increase all customer bills.
The channels where HGTV and Food Network appeared on Cablevision remain available and Scripps could put their programming back at any time while we negotiate a new agreement. We believe it was irresponsible for Scripps to take the channels off, and it is irresponsible for them not to put the channels back on.
We understand the inconvenience this disruption has caused you. Scripps knows that we care about our customers, and that is why they abruptly removed their channels. They want you to believe that Cablevision took these channels off. We did not.
Tell Scripps to turn these channels back on and come to the bargaining table with a reasonable offer.
We will continue to bring you the best quality and value in telecommunications today and everyday.
John Bickham
johnbickham@cablevision.com
President, Cable & Communications
Cablevision Systems Corp.
