Cable companies, Verizon playing money ball; fans lose – Pittsburgh Post

HARRISBURG — Turns out, it might be a good thing that the Steelers aren’t playing on TV tonight in a playoff game against the New England Patriots. There might be riots here.

A financial dispute between three CBS-affiliated TV stations and Verizon FiOS is preventing tonight’s game between the Patriots and the Denver Broncos from being televised here, affecting 30,000 FiOS subscribers, who pay monthly for their service.

The Steelers lost to the Broncos last weekend or else they would be on TV tonight, outraging thousands of Pittsburgh fans in this area.

Since Friday, the main CBS station in Harrisburg, WHP-TV, and two related cable channels, all owned by Newport Television, have not broadcast by FiOS. Each side blames the other for the financial dispute.

Local TV stations receive money from cable companies in exchange for the right to rebroadcast or retransmit their signals, and FiOS and Newport can’t agree on how much should be paid.

These fees are a new source of revenue that some experts say could grow to at least $3.6 billion in coming years.

But local football fans don’t care about any of that. They just want to see the New England-Denver game tonight, and especially the Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans game Sunday. The Ravens are the third most popular team in this area, after the Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles.

Other articles you might like;