Food Network Loses Access to 3M Viewers

At midnight on Dec. 31, the ball dropped on Times Square—as well as on many East Coast television viewers. More than 3 million Cablevision subscribers lost access to the Food Network, after Scripps, which owns the channel, and cable provider Cablevision failed to reach a mutually satisfactory licensing agreement. Despite months of negotiations, Scripps finally cut off Cablevision’s access to both the Food Network and HGTV. The Wall Street Journal reports that Cablevision has “no expectation of carrying [Scripps’] programming again.” “Obviously we feel horrible about it,” said Food Network President Brooke Johnson. But, she added, “all of our other carriage operators recognized the huge increase in popularity we’ve seen for the Food Network… every other contract that was up either reached a successful conclusion or is nearly concluded.”