It's unlikely that shock jock Howard Stern and American Cable Association (ACA) president Matt Polka have much in common beyond strong opinions about the Cablevision-Disney WABC $40 million stare-down.
Stern, never one to duck controversy or take an unpopular stand, used his Sirius radio show--that's the radio show only available over a subscription satellite link--to tell listeners, "There is no (expletive deleted) way Cablevision will survive if they don't have ABC TV on it."
As might be expected, Polka's view was a bit more moderate--and less profane. He called Disney's threat to pull its ABC signals in New York City "deplorable, but hardly surprising to small cable operators" and described them as an effort to "simply extract more cash from cable customers boxed in by a broken retransmission consent regime."
For more:
- see this story
- And this release
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