Forget Free

“It promises to go down to the wire and be every bit as exciting as an episode of 24. As the clocks chime in the new year, Rupert Murdoch’s main US television channel Fox – home to The Simpsons, American Idol and 24 – may disappear from millions of homes. In one of the most vicious media disputes in years, Fox is threatening to stop allowing its programming to be shown on one of the nation’s biggest cable-TV platforms unless it gets paid new fees. This is the latest front in Mr Murdoch’s ‘war on free’ – a battle to ensure that he is paid more, and in more ways, for the output of his media empire. Viewers are being bombarded with propaganda from both sides in this war. Time Warner Cable (TWC), with 14.6 million subscribers the second-largest cable provider in the US, says Fox is demanding money with menaces. Meanwhile viewers of The Simpsons over Christmas had to endure a scrolling bar across the screen in which Fox asked them to join an internet campaign to pressure TWC.”