Fox and Cablevision reach a deal

News Corp. and Cablevision settled their two-week dispute over retransmission fees Saturday night, allowing its 3 million subscribers the chance to see Game 3 of the World Series and today’s Jets-Packers game on Fox/5.

In a statement, Cablevision said, “In the absence of any meaningful action from the FCC, Cablevision has agreed to pay Fox an unfair price for multiple channels of its programming including many in which our customers have little or no interest.

Cablevision conceded because it does not think its customers should any longer be denied the Fox programs they wish to see.”

The terms of the deal were not announced. Also included are WWOR/9, Fox/29 in Philadelphia and three smaller cable channels, Fox Deportes, Fox Business Network and Nat Geo Wild.

In its statement Saturday, Fox said signals for all stations and cable channels were restored before the first pitch of Game 3 of the World Series.

The agreement comes after News Corp. reached a deal Friday with Dish Network to restore several Fox-owned cable channels that had been blacked out since the beginning of October and allowed its 14 million viewers to continue receiving the Fox Broadcast Network.

Football fans with Cablevision will now be able to watch Sunday’s Jets-Green Bay Packers game on Fox.

The blackout had prohibited viewers from seeing such high-profile sporting events as the Giants-Detroit Lions game on Oct. 17, the National League Championship Series and the first two games of the World Series. Also absent were popular Fox shows such as “Glee” and “House.”

Throughout this dispute, which began Oct. 16 when Fox pulled the plug on the two local channels, Cablevision had called for binding arbitration, which News Corp. rejected. The dispute centered on the issue of retransmission fees — how much Cablevision pays to News Corp. for each subscriber.

Cablevision said it now pays News Corp. $70 million for Fox broadcast and cable channels and that Fox had asked for $80 million more. News Corp. has denied that, but has never said publicly said how much more it was asking for.

In the absence of the World Series, Cablevision had announced a plan to reimburse subscribers $10 if they watched the games on the MLB.com webcast. 

In its latest statement, Cablevision restated its position that “the retransmission consent system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.”