Fox Cancels The Future Of All Civilization

[babylonsister]

Fox Cancels The Future Of All Civilization
Posted by Mark on October 17, 2010 at 10:41 am.


In a demonstration of precisely why giant media conglomerates must be regulated and broken up, Fox has escalated a contract dispute into an obscene abuse of power. Their action stems from faltering negotiations over fees paid to Fox by Cablevision, a New York area provider of cable TV service.

“Reports indicate that Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of News Corporation, is blocking Cablevision high-speed Internet customers from accessing Fox.com and Hulu content. Fox’s actions raise important questions about the future of the online video market and the public interest obligations of broadcasters.”

Indeed, it is questionable that Fox would seek to punish Internet users in an attempt to coerce a cable TV operator into forking over twice as much in fees as they presently pay. The Internet users are not a part of this dispute, but because Fox has corporate tentacles that reach around numerous media platforms, they feel empowered to abuse their position. So what’s next?

* Fox Stops Broadcasting to Hotels And Bars To Keep Viewers From Watching Disputed Programming.
* Fox Forbids Customers To Visit The Homes Of Friends And Watch Their Dish Network.
* Fox Blocks Access To Yankee Stadium By Cable Subscribers.
* Fox Erects Tower To interfere With Radio Broadcasting.
* Fox Disables Dialysis Machine Of Cable Customer Watching Glee In Hospital Room.
* Fox Releases Internet Virus To Attack Cable Viewers Of Fox Programs.
* Fox Hires Al Qaeda To Fly Planes Into Cablevision Headquarters.

When companies control access to every pathway to media content the potential for this sort of abuse is too tempting for them to resist. Fox’s behavior is reprehensible. Cablevision’s Internet users have no part of the television dispute. The fact that Fox would deliberately seek to disrupt that service is a perfect example of why they must not be permitted to have that kind of tyrannical power. And that applies to Time Warner, Viacom, and Disney as well. It is also a foreboding preview of what can be expected from the pending Comcast/NBC merger.

more...

http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=2981

[Taverner]

1. Losing Hotels and Bars??????

This will DESTROY them!

[Renew Deal]

2. Both of them suck

The only redeeming attribute of Cablevision is they have US based call centers (on LI IIRC).

[CommonSensePLZ]

3. That's really spiteful form of censorship.

They're overstepping their boundaries there.