SOAP fans should be salivating over the prospect of a 24-hour cable soap channel, except for one thing: Few of them will get to see it when it’s launched Jan.24.
The problem: There’s no room on most cable systems to add the network — called SoapNet — or any other of the dozens of new cable networks battling for channel space.
The situation has led to a number of high-stakes skirmishes between the owners of the would-be cable networks and the companies that run the cable systems — with dire consequences for viewers.
Last weekend, viewers in parts of northern Virginia, Texas and the suburbs of Cleveland — about 400,000 subscribers in all — were unable to watch their home team’s football games and a slew of other shows due to a bitter dispute between the Fox TV station group and Cox Cable, which owns cable systems there and elsewhere.
Fox — owned by News Corp., which also owns The Post — wants Cox to agree to add two new Fox-owned cable networks, and when Cox refused, Fox withdrew its permission for the Cox cable systems to carry Fox programs.
ABC’s TV stations — including Ch.7 here — are also embroiled in a negotiation over so-called “retransmission consent,” in this case with Time Warner, the nation’s biggest cable system operator, with 13 million subscribing households — 1.1 million of them in New York.
At the center of the negotiations: SoapNet, which is being developed by Disney, ABC’s parent company, as a showcase for same-day repeats of ABC’s daytime dramas — “All My Children,” “General Hospital,” “One Life to Live” and “Port Charles.” In addition, SoapNet will have repeats of “Knots Landing,” “Sisters,” “Falcon Crest,” “Hotel,” “The Colbys” and — get this — “Ryan’s Hope,” which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1989.
ABC wants to launch SoapNet in just a few weeks, but the network will launch with so few subscribers that officials won’t reveal how many. Maybe they’re embarrassed.
That’s why it’s so crucial to get Time Warner to agree to add the network, even if the cable company can’t add it for several years.
Officials at ABC and Time Warner won’t reveal details about the negotiations and won’t confirm that SoapNet is the key issue. They say only that the talks are going smoothly and both companies say they expect to hammer out an agreement by their self-imposed deadline of Jan.15.
Until then, the question remains: Is ABC willing to go so far as to withhold transmission of Ch.7 in New York if Time Warner doesn’t agree to add SoapNet some day?
New York 1 is about to lose another veteran. This time it’s anchor/reporter Annika Pergament, who starts working at Ch.2 Monday as a reporter focusing on consumer issues.
At Ch.2 she’ll be reunited with her husband, reporter Michael O’Looney, who also once worked at NY1. Fans of “The Sopranos” know Annika for her appearances last season as a TV reporter and anchor on the HBO mafia show, but she won’t be back when the series starts its new season later this month.
CHANNEL SURFING: American Movie Classics’ presentation of “The Three Stooges” is the best showcase the trio has ever had on TV. The prints are beautifully restored, they run commercial-free, and each one is identified beforehand by name, year and running time.
The only thing marring AMC’s eight-hour marathon New Year’s Day (24 episodes in two, four-hour blocks) was the hosting of Whoopi Goldberg, who seemed to know next to nothing about the Stooges. Fortunately, however, she isn’t on hand for AMC’s unhosted airings of the Stooges on Saturday and Sunday mornings, which began last Sunday at 8 a.m.