Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge has called the company's recent prolonged retransmission fight with News Corp. over Fox Networks' broadcast retransmission fees "a very unpleasant way of doing business having a major conflict like that in public."
Answering a question during a third quarter earnings conference call, Rutledge maintained that the MSO's "behavior was not uneconomic. We were doing a rational thing by not carrying the services on the prices that were pushed to us. That said, we've called for regulatory changes and we think it's necessary to fight for your customers and keep the price low for the product given the economic situation people are in."
That economic situation notwithstanding, Cablevision's third quarter net revenue was up .6 percent to $1.808 billion compared to last year, including a 4.8 percent cable TV net revenue increase to $1.366 billion. Reflecting an industry trend, the MSO reported that it lost 24,500 basic video subscribers--about .8 percent of its base.
For more:
- see this news release
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