Every year we hear about fights going on between the cable television companies and the actual networks, and every year we hear threats that “you won’t be able to see these channels after midnight on New Years Eve”. This year it is FOX and Time Warner:

Time Warner Cable Inc. and News Corp. traded barbs on Wednesday as they face a New Year’s deadline in their landmark fight over TV-programming fees. If the fight remains unresolved it will threaten millions of cable-TV subscribers with the loss of Fox broadcast programs, including big football games, in coming days.

The two sides remain at odds as they try to conclude months of talks over a new contract for Time Warner Cable to pipe News Corp. programming to viewers. Chase Carey, News Corp.’s president and chief operating officer, said in a memo to employees Wednesday, “it looks like we will not reach an agreement and our channels may very well go off the air in Time Warner Cable systems at midnight [Dec. 31].”

I’m not a fan of Time Warner, but I got to side with them on this one. A fear is that if they have to pay too much more for FOX programming then those costs will be passed on to the consumer, and given our bad economic times that might result in people dropping cable. The greed of Murdoch doesn’t view it like that though.

But here’s a thought – Time Warner should tell FOX to go Cheney themselves. Time Warner is one of the biggest providers in the country and if FOX doesn’t have them, then FOX’s ratings will drop big time. That means they will not only see a loss in the revenue from Time Warner, but a loss in advertising revenue.

Then there is another benefit to this plan. The Murdoch empire, including FOX News, loves monopolies. Cable companies pretty much hold monopolies on their service areas, so if Time Warner dropped FOX chances are they won’t loose to many customers. Sure some might say “screw it, I’m getting satellite,” but not everyone can do that. You do need line of site and to live in a place that allows them.

To me Time Warner holds the upper hand here. FOX can cave or they can loose probably close to 30% of their viewers. So go Time Warner, squeeze the greed out of Murdoch.