Tribune-Cablevision deal ends NY area blackout

After about two months of baseball and football withdrawal (or “Glee” withdrawal for others), Cablevision and Tribune TV stations in the New York tri-state area have ended their war over retransmission fees.

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he terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.

Access has also been restored to WGN-TV from Chicago to some of Cablevision’s Optimum West service area.

"We are pleased to have reached agreement with Tribune to return its stations to Cablevision, particularly its Fox affiliate in Connecticut, the only source of Fox programming for about 50,000 of our customers,” Cablevision said in a statement. “We sincerely appreciate the patience of our customers as we worked to reach an agreement that is consistent with our focus on minimizing the impact of rising programming costs on cable rates."

“We thank our viewers for their loyalty and continued support,” Tribune said in a statement. “You can look forward to the return of your favorite CW shows.”

Retransmission fees are payments cable operators make to local stations in their market. The fees are for the right to carry the signals and then resell them to subscribers.

However, viewers in some areas with duplicates of Fox and CW will no longer have both channels.