So here I sit in my little home office, some really good music on the PC (Puccini), a bit of foggy snow in miniture crystals, deer tracks right up to my north facing window from sometime last night and of course Cablevision, that dastardly bunch who has the monopoly over Long Island and who's greed and stupid management knows no limits (hey, look what the Dolans did to all the Madison Squarte Garden franchises) can't come to agreement with Food Network and Home and Garden TV. ...so those channels now run announcements blaming Scripts Howard management for this. It takes two to tango fellows and knowing Cablevision fairly well (intimately actually) this is a take it or leave situation from them. Food and HGTV can't afford to loose millions of homes, particularly affluent homes, from their distribution and there are millions who are out the door this morning.
As that great line went in Hunt for Red October "It isn't so much not being willing to play chicken, Jonsey, its knowing when not to blink". Cablevision knows that Scripps will have to make up to its advertisers for the lose of households - each commercial reaching probably 10-15% fewer homes than expected - and cablevision knows it will only have to weather the PR onslaught but they are used to that and they don't give a damn anyway.
I'm going back to Puccini, some coffee and the nice white backyard with deer prints.
