Fios and Cox Media Group in tussle
January 1, 2020
Enter 2020 and you will not find WPXI on your Verizon FiOS lineup as of 1:30 a.m. Verizon claims that Cox Media Group wants to increase the charge to carry their stations by 70%. Locally that means you won’t be seeing WPXI-TV or its sub channels “Me-TV” or “Laff-TV” on Verizon until an agreement has been reached.
Speaking of which, this is the all new Cox Media Group which now has majority ownership by Apollo Global Management. Cox Enterprises retains a minority ownership of CMG. The sale was final on December 18.
Now, I was trying to watch PCNC early this morning … and, whenever I put the channel on, it says that “we are not able to carry this channel at this time” or something like that. I actually have Xfinity and, whenever I put on PCNC, which is on Channel 35 in my location, it says that the channel is unavailable. I am able to get WPXI and its two other subchannels on there. I apologize if this is slightly off-topic.
Seems that Comcast/Xfinity (according to the PG) won’t be carrying PCNC for awhile. Just a little history, PCNC was designed years ago to placate the cable companies and payment of carriage fees. Think I’m going to go out and purchase an antenna for one of my sets and see if I can get WPXI OTA. I don’t think settlement with Verizon is going to happen soon.