WABC-TV Back On For 3.1M Customers In NYC As Oscars Begin

NEW YORK – Cablevision’s 3.1 million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are enjoying the Academy Awards telecast Sunday night.

The signal was restored after the cable operator reached a deal with ABC’s parent company in a dispute over fees.

Cablevision Systems Corp. spokesman Charles Schueler says “It is a deal that is fair to our customers and in line with our other programming agreements.”

A stalemate in the dispute had led ABC’s parent company, the Walt Disney Co., to pull its programming from the cable operator’s subscribers at midnight Saturday. The move, which imperiled viewers’ access to the highly rated Oscar show broadcast, marked the first time in a decade that a major broadcast station went dark in a dispute with a cable company.

Cablevision says the signal was switched on at 8:43 p.m. Eastern. The awards show began at 8:30 p.m.