No More FOOD NETWORK? WTF??

OK, now that I have your attention...

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/cablevision_drops_food_network.html

Probably nobody outside of my area is going to care about this, but we're not happy campers. Imagine our surprise when the wife turned on Food Network yesterday morning and saw a message from Cablevision saying that effective immediately, it will no longer be carrying the channel (or its sister network, HGTV) due to a contract/fees dispute with the owners of the channels, Scripps Network.

Needless to say, my wife sh*t a solid gold brick. (She's Rachael Ray's biggest fan.) Cablevision's agreement with Scripps to carry the channels ran out at midnight on Dec. 31st and when they couldn't come to new terms, Cablevision dropped'em both.

So my wife's pissed, and I'm not too happy either. I actually enjoy a lot of the stuff on Food Network too (i.e. "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," "Iron Chef," "Dinner Impossible," and of course, those endless looks down Giada DeLaurentiis' cleavage during her cooking shows), and when there was nothing else on TV it was usually a good "fall-back" channel, especially during the daytime when my wife is home with the kids. (She can only watch so many consecutive hours of "SpongeBob" y'know...)

I hope the two parties come to terms soon and bring this channel back. It probably wouldn't be good for either side if it turns into a prolonged battle. Eventually Rachael Ray would command her armada of 30 Minute Mealers to descend on the headquarters of both Cablevision and Scripps, armed with pitchforks, flaming spatulas and barrels of boiling hot EVOO... and then it would just get ugly.

Anyone else in this area missing this channel already? I could honestly care less about HGTV, but not having Food Network is going to suck very quickly.
to both Scripps and Cablevision!!!!

I like the food network.... i'm glad we still get it. But that sucks freddy!

I love Food Network...but Rachel Ray is annoying. Paula Deen's better.

Switch to DirecTV - they still have it on!!!

Yea I got Cablevision. I don't watch the either of those channels too much but once in a blue moon I'll turn it on. I do like that Diners and Dives show and a few others. I don't understand why they keep doing this. A few months back they took away Monsters HD. I just started getting into horror movies and BOOM! they take it away. Why do they decide what we watch? We're paying for the service, shouldnt that mean we should be getting these channels? I can understand tv shows coming and going but a whole station thats hugely popular? Looks like someone will be looking into getting Fios when it comes to my area (if that ever happens)

thejokeriv wrote:

Switch to DirecTV - they still have it on!!!

Tried that a while ago. We dumped Cablevision altogether and signed up for Verizon's equivalent of their "Triple Play" (i.e. cable TV, internet service and phone all in one package), but since their FiOS fiber-optic network hasnt' reached my area yet they had some kinda special deal with DirecTV to cover the TV part. So a DirecTV guy came to my house, climbed up on my roof with a little scanner/dish thingie and pointed it every which way for over an hour before finally coming down and telling me that there are too many trees on my property, and he couldn't get a signal. So much for that idea. We ended up going back to Cablevision cuz they seem to be the only game in town.

Schbopo wrote:

I love Food Network...but Rachel Ray is annoying. Paula Deen's better.

...but which one would you rather wake up next to? I'm betting it wouldn't be Paula Deen.

Seriously, tho, my wife has a couple of Paula Deen's cookbooks and has whipped up some seriously kickass down home cookin' from time to time thanks to her. I doubt I could eat Paula-style cookin' every day, though, or my cholesterol level would be fatal.

I agree with Samu; Rachel Ray is annoying.

She's terminally perky. On weekdays when I'm home sick and too lazy to find something else to watch, I lie there yellilng at the TV, "Cheer down you smurfette!".

tohostudios wrote:

I agree with Samu; Rachel Ray is annoying.

She's terminally perky. On weekdays when I'm home sick and too lazy to find something else to watch, I lie there yellilng at the TV, "Cheer down you smurfette!".

Oh, I'm not disagreein' with Shebop; just sayin' that Rachael is cuter than Paula. I betcha Paula must've been somethin' in the days before electricity, though.

...Have I mentioned lately that I'm extremely shallow?

Wow, that is lame. I get Directv, so I'm not affected by this.

I enjoy watching both Food Network and HGTV. They both have some good stuff on.

I hope they sort out the fees issues soon, or there will probably be a lot of mad people up your way.


Do they have any comparable channels where you are? I know on Direct there are quite a few other channels you could watch that are similar.

its amazing what happens when companies cannot agree to contracts.

I thought all Rachel Ray shows on Food were repeats these days since she's gone "Oprah".

Metal Misfit wrote:

I thought all Rachel Ray shows on Food were repeats these days since she's gone "Oprah".

Possibly, but she made so many episodes of "30 Minute Meals" and her various specials and travel shows that they probably have enough "new" Rachael Ray stuff stockpiled to last'em another ten years.

Metallic Blaze wrote:

Do they have any comparable channels where you are?

There are a bunch of food-related shows on the Travel Channel (like the hilarious "Man Vs. Food") so I'll survive. But my wife is STILL pissed about this whole thing! Haha. The women in my office were all b*tching and moaning about it this morning too. I'm thinking that Cablevision may have underestimated how many people watch that channel! If they start seeing a lot of customer defections to satellite TV I betcha they'll come back to the bargaining table with Food/HGTV damn quick.

Metal Misfit wrote:

I thought all Rachel Ray shows on Food were repeats these days since she's gone "Oprah".

She hasn't gone "Oprah", a 3 minute viewing of her show would reveal that. She still films new episodes of her Food Network shows, and always has.

Sorry to hear you lost the channel.
If I was paying a lot of money to watch tv, I'd cancel immediately and find another cable company or buy a satellite dish.

I haven't had cable tv for years, (I use rabbit ears antenna, and either download a few shows I can't see otherwise, or watch live on the internet) but used to love the Food Network.
Kept a few shows I taped off there, Jamie Oliver used to show easy stuff to make.

and I like Rachel Ray too but agree with one thing,
it is kind of hard to take someone being so chipper non-stop.
It does not seem real.

Can't say I watch it much, but my wife would sh*t a wild cougar if Comcast dropped that channel. I'd certainly miss the benefits of the meals she whips up from watching lots of the cooking show though.

My mom looks like Paula Deen, minus the Southern accent.

The Scripps Vs. Cablevision battle is getting uglier. Now Scripps is taking out commercials on other networks proclaiming Cablevision to be the bad guy, whilst Cablevision is running ads claiming that Scripps is "holding the channels hostage" and refuses to return to the bargaining table.

Meanwhile, my wife continues to suffer from Food Network withdrawal. Looks like it's gonna be a long, cold, Food Network-less winter.

He's not "hot" BUT, does anybody love watching "BBQ U" on PBS' Create Channel on Sunday mornings? If you like to grill it's awesome!

Those 2 pics are priceless! I love those lovely ladies! They sure know how to heat things up in the kitchen and cook me up some pleasure!

GIADA is my personal culinary Goddess!

I wanted to see IRON CHEF with EMERIL.



I hope they come to an agreement without compromising the costumers

powermacho wrote:

I wanted to see IRON CHEF with EMERIL.



I hope they come to an agreement without compromising the costumers

BAM!

The standoff has come to an end... Food Network and HGTV returned to our cable lineup last night. Thank Goodness. After three weeks I was starting to go through "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" withdrawal...