Fox-Cablevision Dispute Leaves Old Giants Fans In Dark
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - The loss of Fox for Cablevision customers is a big blow to old Giants fans, who are missing their baseball team's return to the World Series.
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WCBS 880's Sean Adams reports
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1010 WINS' Terry Sheridan reports
When the New York Giants baseball team left for San Francisco in 1957, some New Yorkers never relinquished their allegiance.
RELATED: World Series to Fall Victim to Fox-Cablevision Dispute
William Kent of the Bronx helped start the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society.
"We wanted a thing where we would schmooze and make friends and relive the old days," Kent told WCBS 880 reporter Sean Adams.
Those "old days" included things like sneaking into the Polo Grounds.
Kent said, "We climbed over the fence into the Polo Grounds, up about, what, four stories - something like that. We would walk down to the box seats."
That resourcefulness is needed again with Cablevision and Fox sparring.
Kent and his fellow Giants fans have to watch the World Series elsewhere.
"I'm going to a bar on Riverdale Avenue," says Kent.
He says one Giants fan in his building rigged an old antenna to the TV.
Cablevision released a statement on the situation Wednesday:
"Cablevision has and will continue to negotiate in good faith. We are trying to reach a deal that is fair for everyone, including our customers, but there has been absolutely no movement by Fox in their attempts to gain massive fee increases from Cablevision customers to carry broadcast signals that are free over the air.
The FCC is the government agency charged with protecting television consumers and oversight of broadcast licenses. We do not understand how protecting and interceding on behalf of TV viewers in 3 million blacked out households in the Northeastern United States does not fall under the FCC's purview. The FCC has the facts and our customers are demanding that the FCC act."
