In the latest escalation in the battle that has left 3 million viewers without Fox programming, News Corporation Tuesday accused Cablevision of directing subscribers unhappy that they might not be able to see the World Series to illegal Web sites carrying the signals of the Fox network.
News Corporation and Cablevision have been deadlocked for 11 days over fees for retransmission of signals of Fox television stations, which News Corporation owns. The dispute now threatens to make televised coverage of the World Series, which begins Wednesday, unavailable in the 3 million homes that subscribe to Cablevision.
News Corporation served Cablevision with a cease and desist letter Tuesday after a report in the New York Daily News that described a taped telephone call from a Cablevision subscriber, who happened to be a Fox employee,
complaining to a Cablevision sales representative about the prospect of missing the World Series.
The Daily News report recounted that the sales rep revealed that the games can still be seen on the Internet and mentioned two Web sites where Fox programming has been available.
News Corporation has called the sites illegal, though at least one, Ivi TV, filed documents in New York District Court Tuesday stating that it has legal standing to carry the signals on the Web. The company claimed
that it has paid a fee to broadcasters for rights to their programs in the same way that cable companies pay fees to program providers.
Cablevision responded to the cease-and-desist letter with a statement: “This is an obvious tactic from News Corporation, which blocked the Internet, to shift focus away from their pulling the plug on 3 million New York households. Fox should cease and desist its World Series blackout.”
The statement did not expressly deny that a Cablevision representative suggested that a customer turn to an Internet site to watch the Series games. But a Cablevision executive, who asked not to be identified because the company was not making an official comment about the Daily News story, said this practice was not taking place on phone calls to sales representatives.