Sunday, March 7, 2010

ABC You Later, Cablevision!


So, it's happening again, only this time, they went and did it.  They've gone nuclear, and it's the end of the world, at least in TV terms, which means going black, like the end of the movie Fail-Safe, or the series finale of The Sopranos.  

In broadcasting, death means going off the air, and I'm just thankful that I live outside of the blast radius, which is to say, that I am not a Cablevision subscriber, thank you very much.  As the New York Daily News put it in a headline (and you may recall their famous headline of the 70s, FORD TO CITY:  DROP DEAD):

Channel 7 ABC flashes angry message, then goes black for Cablevision customers at midnight

2 comments:

90's kid said...

I definitely agree with your summary at the end. I was so mad when I turned on my TV and realized there was ANOTHER channel cablevision would no longer be providing me (cable is not cheap, I want my moneys worth!). Interestingly enough though, I turned on my TV last night and there was a message saying ABC is back on the air...right around the time of the Oscars. I guess that cablevision coughed up the money that ABC wanted.

Amanda Fiscina said...

Thanks for the great summary and analysis. I found that the articles written about this controversy published in the traditional print media outlets this week all were individually missing something, whether it was the larger policy angle or a missing key fact or two. Blog posts like this one have the unique ability to merge the "best" parts of all the traditional articles, in order to construct an all-encompassing piece on issues that affect the audience at hand.