Unfortunately, contract negotiations like this happen all the time, but there are alternatives to receive WPIX if you are in the Tri-State area.  Dish Network, DirecTV, Verizon Fios and Over The Air with an antenna.

Also, for those who don't live in the Tri-State area and their TV provider doesn't carry WPIX or Antenna TV, Dish Network offers a "Super Station Package" WPIX, WWOR, WSBK, KWGN and KTLA for $7.00 a month or $2.00 a month "A la Carte" for any of the stations individually.  The only problem with Dish Network, if WPIX isn't a regular "Local" station for you, it isn't in HD, but just being able to get WPIX at all is well worth it.

I live in the Western part of New York State, and I pick up WPIX on a "Spotbeam" from Dish Network, so they can only give me the SD channels .  Most Cable providers, DirecTV and Verizon FIOS, won't offer these channels because they already give you these networks in your local channel package and "Don't want to waste bandwidth" and don't offer the above channels.  They will tell you it has something to do with Distant Broadcast Network rules and something about a Direct Market Area and what stations they are allowed to give you according to the FCC.

But Dish Network, Verizon Fios, DirecTV ; and the Cable TV providers are all governed by the FCC so if Dish Network can offer these channels, the other providers could too.


I'm not getting anything for mentioning Dish Network though they do have a program if I were to refer someone, I would get I think $25.00 per referral that signs up.  But they expect me to refer my neighbors, and most people on this message board live all over the USA and other Countries.

I just wanted to let you all know that there are alternatives if Cablevision doesn't reach an agreement with WPIX.  Also in my area, we get Antenna TV over the air with an antenna, but unfortunately, it isn't in HD, being their programming was done in SD 4:3 ratio so  there are black bars on the sides of he image on an HDTV, but you can stretch the image to fit the screen.

Hi Diane,

Where I live, we have Time Warner Cable and because I live in HUD Subsidized Housing for Senior Citizens and Disabled Persons, they had a bulk account with Time Warner where we have free Basic Cable, and if we wanted Digital or DVR, we got a special price and I was only paying $34.00 a month to Time Warner for a Digital Box in the bedroom and for a dual tuner HD DVR for the living room.  But as of July 31st. they dropped their contract with Time Warner and Time Warner had representatives here in the interum to get people set up.

If I wanted just Expanded Basic Cable with no converter boxes for channels 2-69 but in actualaity, we only get about 53 channels they wanted $75.00 a month.  If I wanted Basic Cable, channels 2-13, they wanted $17.00 a month.

It was a little bit cheaper to get these packages if you went with the Digital Boxes and DVR, but then you pay a rental fee on top of your bill for the channels you receive and then there are about 12 different taxes on top of that.  $ So it was still close to $75.00 and that didn't include any Premium Channels.

They won't let us have WPIX, but they do give us the secondary Digital Channels on some of our local channels, so we do get Antenna TV, but of course it is only SD because all the programming they show was done for regular TV's with 4:3 Aspect Ratio.

But when I had Cable, there were be pixelations a lot and some of our local channels because their transmitters are over 20 miles from us they are very hard to pick up and Time Warner has to pick them up using an antenna and a Digital To Analog Converter box to pick them up and then they retransmit them to us on whatever channel they choose so if there is interferance, even with people who don't have Cable, but just an antenna, both Time Warner and the people picking that station up with an antenna lose signal.  The local channels on Cable TV aren't uplinked to a satellite and then downlinked back to Time Warner.  If they were, we would get better reception.

So I went back to Dish Network and I'm getting $30.00 a month off my bill for 1 year, and I have a 2 year contract, but after the year is up, it will be about what I would be paying Time Warner without any boxes, and I get more channels than Time Warner offers, not to mention WPIX.

I can't say that they will give it to anyone in any state, but they do offer it even if you get your local CW station so hopefully people in all states would be able to get WPIX if they go with Dish Network.  The only problem with Dish Network and DirecTV is if the weather is really bad, you lose signal until the storm passes, which usually isn't too long and in the winter, if the satellite dish is mounted near a window or on a pole in the ground and snow gets on it, you can just brush the snow off, but if it's up on a high roof, you will have to wait for the sun to melt it.

I don't even watch regular TV hardly anymore, I usually will DVR things off Turner Classic Movies, or MeTV which shows Classic TV, but also shows some newer TV like Barney Miller, Maude, Sanford and Son, Good Times, All In The Family.  Those are good programs, but I don't consider them Classic TV.

Classic TV is programs like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Peter Gunn, Honey West, Bachelor Father, Hazel, McHale's Navy, Car 54 Where Are You, The Munsters,, just to name a few.

So I DVR some programs that are on overnight and I also have Netflix and watch Classic TV and Movies on Netflix.  Or I watch my video tapes or DVD's.

I watch WPIX News usually even though I'm not in that area, but they show news from other towns ouside of Manhattan and it's nice to see some places that I've been to when I lived in Westchester County years ago.

Oh well, I hope that anyone who isn't able to get Antenna TV or WPIX from their Cable or Fios provider, that they would be able to get it from Dish Network.  You can always call them and let them know your City and State and see if you went with Dish Network if you could get WPIX for $2.00 a month or get their Superstation package for $7,00 a month which consists of WPIX, WWOR, WSBK, KWGN and KTLA.  They are all mostly CW Affiliates or MeTV or MyTV and I can't say for sure, but I think either KWGN or KTLA are Tribune owned, Chip would know better than I would and they would broadcast The Yule Log too.

I subscribe to all 5 channels, and though we don't get Antenna TV on Dish Network, yet, I can pick them up with an antenna, so I have 2 possible choices to DVR or tape The Yule Log.  Maybe more if any of the others are Tribune Owned.

BTW, in many ways, the older Analog TV's are much better than the thin HDTV's today and it's a shame that our Goverment forced the TV Broadcasters to go Digital and now a lot of people can't even get TV because they live too far from where Cable will run their Cable or they are in valleys and blocked from receiving satellite TV and are too far from their local TV Stations so all they have is radio.

You're welcome Diane,

I grew up in the field and had people around me who worked in electronics and also worked for a company that installed Cable TV as a sub-contractor for the local Cable company in the middle 1970's.  The company was actually a Professional Sound Company and they did sound systems for Rock Concerts, High School/College Graduation Ceremonies and even had a recording studio.

But of course, back then, we didn't have satellite TV for consumers, FIOS and Cable TV with more than maybe 30 channels with a box connected to your TV.  There was only 1 HBO and 1 Showtime and Cinemax, The Movie Channel, Starz weren't even around.

Then too Cable TV has expanded over the years and they can offer you well over 200 channels, though most of them are News, Shopping, Sports or Infomercials.

I've also picked up things by talking to different technical support people and one time when I called Dish Network to find out about something it ended up being someone who used to work for DirecTV and I was just curious why Dish Network was able to offer WPIX and the other Superstations? and he told me that DirecTV didn't want to waste bandwidth by giving us another CW channel because we already had our local CW affiliate so why give them another?.  But then, most of the TV providers give us WGN America, WGN if you are in the Chicago, area but they are two different channels with different programming, but they are CW affiliates.

It's most likely the same with most Cable TV providers and FIOS.  They will tell you that it has something to do with "Distant Broadcast Networks" and some other thing that they can only offer you channels in a certain area.  But they are all Governed by the FCC so they must have the same guidelines the Dish Network does and they just don't want to waste their so called "Precious Bandwidth"

But I can probably guess that anyone who receives Cable TV, FIOS or DirecTV, that they will get at least 2 of each of their local channels and sometimes 3 of the same channels.  1 for SD TV's, 1 for HD TV's and then they also give you your local channels in the higher numbers.

Even Dish Network does it.  We get channel 2 and all our other local channels in their proper channel on the guide, but there are two of them each and as I mentioned 1 is SD and 1 is HD, then we get them again in 5000's and that is part of our 250 channels, so no matter who you go with, you really aren't getting 250 channels that you would probably want to watch.   This doesn't include the PPV's or VOD's or Premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, and God knows how many other Premium packages they offer because now you can get International programming too.