WABC Back on Cablevision

ABC's New York flagship says agreement in principle recognizes station's "fair value"

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/7/2010 9:36:56 PM

Cablevision restored WABC to its lineup March 7, about 30 minutes into ABC's telecast of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.

ABC used a screen crawl to announce that ABC had reached an agreement "in principle" with Cablevision. The agreement facilitated the restoration of the ABC O&O WABC/Channel 7 to 3.1 million subscribers in suburban New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The screen crawl came during Christoph Waltz's acceptance speech for supporting actor. As the crawl appeared a second time, the camera cut away to Disney-ABC CEO Bob Iger.

In a statement, Cablevision did not say the circumstances, only that the station was back on the system after ABC had made a new offer Sunday.

WABC GM Rebecca Campbell said: "We've made significant progress, and have reached an agreement in principle that recognizes the fair value of ABC7, with deal points that we expect to finalize with Cablevision. Given this movement, we're pleased to announce that ABC7 will return to Cablevision households while we work to complete our negotiations."

Charles Schueler, Cablevision's executive vice president of communications, said: "We are happy to report that WABC Channel 7 has returned to Cablevision's 3 million New York area homes," said Charles Schueler, Cablevision EVP. "We are very grateful to our customers for their support and pleased to welcome ABC back."

Various legislators and the FCC had urged the two sides to resolve the dispute and return WABC to the air in time for the Oscars Sunday night.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who had been the most high-profile legislators pushing the two sides for a deal, or the FCC to intervene absent one, gave the reconciliation his blessing.  

"I'm pleased to see that common sense has been restored in these negotiations and that Disney and Cablevision have agreed not to make consumers the victims," said Kerry in a statement late Sunday. But he suggested a larger disconnect remained. 

"Moving forward, we must assess the roots of these broadcast disputes and ensure that the rules of the road promote resolution rather than public conflict that strips consumers of the services they rely on," he said. "I will continue to fight to ensure the interests of consumers trump narrow interests."

With Marisa Guthrie