FOX TV STILL DARK IN MOST OF NEW YORK AREA

Talks between Cablevision and Fox TV over a new retransmission consent agreement are not following the previous scenario for such bargaining, in which last-minute deals are announced after only a few hours, at the most, of service disruption. Indeed, the two sides broke off negotiations on Monday after a three-day stalemate and scheduled no new talks, leaving most New York-area viewers without many popular TV shows, including House and Glee, and threatening to black out even the World Series, which begins next week. Each side blamed the other for the impasse. Cablevision called for “government intervention, in the form of binding arbitration,” but Fox insisted that the cable company’s “real intention is to continue making this their subscribers’ problem in the hope that with enough inconvenience, politicians will intervene to protect Cablevision’s huge profits.” On Monday both New Jersey senators called for the FCC to intervene, but the commission said that for the time being it planned only to monitor the situation.