Do you watch ABC (channel 7 or channel 707) on Cablevision? Well as of March 7, 2010 you won’t be able to get it anymore. Sound familiar? It should. Cablevision pulled the same stunt with the Food Network and HGTV in January.

For a Bloomberg news report on this, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrXeBivNLok

According to http://www.saveabc7.com/:

“Thank you for helping to make ABC7 New York’s favorite television station. We work hard to earn your support every day by bringing you the best in local news, community affairs and top-quality entertainment programming.

Unfortunately, as of March 7th, ABC7 may no longer be carried on Cablevision systems.

For the past two years we have tried, without success, to reach an agreement with Cablevision to carry ABC7. Why? Because Cablevision’s position is that ABC7 is worth little to nothing to its business and its proposed offers have been consistently unreasonable and unrealistic.

In fact, ABC7 delivers some of the most popular programming carried on Cablevision today, shows like LOST, Grey’s Anatomy, Jeopardy, Dancing with the Stars, Wheel of Fortune, Desperate Housewives, General Hospital, Regis and Kelly, Modern Family, The Academy Awards, The Oprah Winfrey Show and Eyewitness News.

We think these shows are valuable. And your bill shows that Cablevision must agree, since you already pay for ABC7 as part of your Broadcast Basic Tier – a service for which, as a Cablevision customer, you pay as much as $18 each month.

What your bill doesn’t show is how much Cablevision pays us for these programs.

The answer: They Pay Nothing. That’s right…Cablevision charges you for ABC7 and then keeps ALL the money.

We will continue to work with Cablevision to reach a fair agreement, but regardless of the outcome, ABC7 is available to you through a variety of other providers, including Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse and DIRECTV, and, as always, FREE over-the-air.”

Personally I’ve had enough of Cablevision’s games. It’s time to dump these chumps and show them that we wont put up with their shoddy service and high prices. I’ll be changing service immediately and urge you to do the same.

See also:

• http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360837,00.asp
• http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1267598764168750.xml&coll=5
• http://cablevision.com/abc/ (for Cablevision’s side of the story)

Related posts:

1. Mayor Fried Calls Out Cablevision on Unethical Rate Charges