Chris Birckhead came home Tuesday night hoping that his TiVo had recorded “Chopped,” his favorite show on the Food Network. Instead, it had recorded a looped commercial from Cablevision, his cable provider, saying the network’s owner, Scripps, had taken his show away.
Cablevision is going without Food Network stars like Emeril Lagasse, left, and Mario Batali.
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About three million cable households in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have been affected by a bitter argument between the cable provider and Scripps Networks over how much Cablevision subscribers should pay for the Food Network and HGTV.
The feud, which has already dragged on for almost a week, is part of a pattern that analysts say is growing more common. As cable channels like HGTV raise their ratings, they also want to raise their rates with cable operators. Whatever the outcome, the result is likely to be higher cable bills for customers.
The two companies are tarring each other through TV commercials and print ads, and Scripps has enlisted stars like Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri in its publicity effort. Scripps yanked the channels from Cablevision on New Year’s Day, and the two companies have been bickering since. On Wednesday, though, the two sides held their first meaningful talks in at least a week and Scripps said “some progress” was made, although not enough to restore the channels.
Meanwhile, customers are left with few options; they can complain to Cablevision or the networks (via online forms provided by both), or they can try to switch to another provider.
Channel interruptions are rare, but not unprecedented: Lifetime vanished from the Dish Network for a month in 2006 because of a dispute over fees.
A similar fight between Time Warner Cable and the News Corporation that centered on retransmission fees for the Fox Broadcasting network ended over the weekend, averting a Fox blackout in some major TV markets.
Another retransmission feud, this one between the cable provider Mediacom and the station owner Sinclair, has dragged on almost a week after the provider’s contract to carry the stations expired. Sinclair is insisting on higher per-subscriber payments for its 22 stations, although they are available over the airwaves free. Current laws require cable systems to carry local stations.
Mediacom said on Wednesday that it was hopeful a deal would be reached in the next day. Thomas J. Larsen, the company’s vice president for legal and public affairs, said the recent fights had raised awareness “of the problems with the current retransmission consent scheme,” and said it would press the government for changes to the current system.
Because it involves cable channels, the dispute between Cablevision and Scripps involves carriage fees, not retransmission. Scripps is seeking a big raise for the Food Network, which earns only about 8 cents a month on average from distributors, according to the research firm SNL Kagan. Scripps would like about 25 cents a month for each subscriber receiving the Food Network. It is seeking a smaller increase for HGTV, which currently earns 13 cents on average.
Scripps argues that it has been undervalued. “It’s the affiliate fees that essentially fund our investment in programming,” John Lansing, the president of Scripps Networks, in an interview Wednesday.
Those investments have been followed by major ratings gains. Last year, HGTV ranked No. 15 among the most popular cable channels in prime time, with an average of 1.2 million viewers, up 9 percent from the previous year. The Food Network, ranked No. 17 with 1.1 million viewers, posted 26 percent growth.
Scripps concluded new carriage deals with four other distributors last month, but it says Cablevision largely refused to negotiate. Taking a public stand against higher programming fees, Cablevision said in a statement Wednesday that Scripps was asking for a “$20 million annual rate increase,” a figure that Scripps disputes. Michael Morris, an analyst at UBS, said in an analyst note Monday that Cablevision, which is controlled by the Dolan family, had “lived up to its reputation as a tough negotiator.”
Cablevision subscribers have vented their anger online. Mr. Birckhead, a 29-year-old network engineer who lives in Hoboken, N.J., was initially mad at Cablevision when he couldn’t watch the Food Network, but redirected his anger toward Scripps after reading that the company had turned off its channels on Cablevision’s systems as it extended negotiations with another operator, Time Warner Cable.
“It seems like there’s no reason why they can’t leave it on while they negotiate,” Mr. Birckhead said.
Wednesday’s talks suggested at least a slight thawing in the feud, although Cablevision called it unfortunate that Scripps did not agree to restore the programming temporarily.
Whether the channels stay gone or the operators agree to pay higher fees, the consumers lose, said Shari Anne Brill, a senior vice president at the media agency Carat. “One way or another, the consumer’s going to bear the brunt, and that never changes,” she said.
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