It turns out that Fox News may be taken off the air after the new year. Now, before you start cheering, we should talk about why Fox might not be available on your local cable television station. Apparently, the cable giant, Time Warner, doesn't want to meet Fox's demand for $1 per subscriber as payment for their channels. If a deal is not reached by midnight on New Years eve, then all of the Fox owned broadcast networks and many of its cable channels would disappear.

Politicians have started to weigh in. Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat, has called for a 30-day "cooling off period," so a deal could be reached. Time Warner has stated that it would be fine with an interim deal. However, Fox is holding firm, stating that it would not accept an interim deal at all.

Time Warner Cable also made an offer for binding arbitration from the FCC, but Fox declined that as well. The offer was made by Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communication, Technology and the Internet.

A Time Warner Cable spokeswoman said "we've offered reasonable compensation, agreed to carry Fox while we work out a deal, and agreed to binding arbitration. We've done everything we can to reach a fair agreement."

All I can personally say is "hmmmmm." First, African Americans have long been offended by the programming on Fox News, which is hardly considered a serious news organization anymore. Secondly, I must confess that it does appear that Fox has the upper hand in these negotiations. Most of the offers being made by Time Warner and the Federal Government are getting rebuffed by Fox, which implies that they are ready to take their programming elsewhere.

Finally, it should be noted that stalemates like this are not uncommon. The same situation occurred last year between Time Warner Cable and Viacom, who owns MTV and Vh-1. Additionally, not making a deal would cause both sides to lose dearly. Time Warner might lose subscribers because Fox owns the rights to NFL Football, "House" and "American Idol." At the same time, Fox would lose millions of viewers for its programs, which would definitely upset its advertisers. This battle for media turf is effectively the result of a decline in ad revenue, due to the fragmentation of media outlets. As more channels and entertainments options come into existence, financial power is not held by just a few companies anymore. As ad revenue drops for these networks, they are looking to cable subscribers to help fill the gap. That gap is not likely to be filled, which is why I sold my stock in the industry earlier this year.

It should be interesting to see how this ends. Will Fox be taken off the air for good? We can only dare to dream.


Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.