Cablevision customers tuning in to the Food Network or HGTV yesterday were greeted with an apology.
The stations were yanked from the cable lineup as a result of a fee dispute with Scripps Networks. The outage affected 3.1 million subscribers in the metropolitan area.
Cablevision broadcast a message explaining the dispute, and company officials indicated there was no immediate plan to restore the stations.
In response, Scripps launched online efforts to rally viewers to lobby the cable company.
“Cablevision Customers: We hear you & we’re disappointed too! Click to see what u can do 2 get HGTV back on Cablevision,” the network posted on Twitter.
A Facebook group dubbed “We Want The Food Network and HGTV back on Cablevision — NOW!” urged users to e-mail Cablevision chief James Dolan.
“We recently switched back to Cablevision from [Verizon] Fios. I would never have done that if my 2 favorite channels were not included,” Judy Kudysch Kule posted. “Looks like we will be going back to Fios if this is not resolved very quickly.”
Time Warner Cable continued to carry both networks under a temporary extension.