Dear Cablevision and Scripps,

Can't we all just get along?

It's been two weeks without Food Network and HGTV and we're getting a little testy around here.

Now Cablevision, I know you are trying to tell us that this is all Scripps' fault, and that you are just the fall guy, taking the heat from the very customers whose wallets you are trying to protect. But come on. Who is buying that? We all know you are a giant powerful corporation and we all know that you got that way by getting us to pay more and more for TV, which most of us still remember used to be free. It can't be ALL Scripps' fault.


Before we even get to the issue of whether or not what you're saying is believable, let's first address what you are saying. What ARE you saying??? Your long, drawn out explanation of how Scripps got a case of the Greedy Gimmies and took their networks and went home is maybe just a million times more complicated than it needs to be.

Our needs are basic. Show us yummy food. Let us see what Paula or Ina can do with 12 sticks of butter and a waffle iron, or what Giada can make with all that cleavage showing, or what $150,000 can buy (four bedrooms AND a walk in closet???) in other parts of the country. But please cease and desist with all the blah blah blah. Are you bringing Iron Chef back? Not yet? Then shhhh. Because your powerpoint presentation has too many slides and it's making my brain hurt.

Cablevision, I did happen to catch the part about Scripps wanting to raise our rates and Cablevision being vehemently opposed to this. As proof of your disdain for rate increases, you quote some statistics about how little Cablevision's rates have gone up over the past few years. Now...perhaps your rates haven't gone up, but you've done other things, like taking away channels we're already paying for and making them cost extra. I think we have had to upgrade to the triple platinum diamond golden package by now, just so we can get HBO.

And Scripps. Could you really, really not find a way to work it out before pulling the networks from Cablevision? You have to know that since food tv has become cool, lots of other networks are ramping up the food programming. Um, Top Chef? Man vs Food, anyone? Tony Bourdain? Tonight I even saw a BBQ contest on TLC. Left to our own devices, we can probably find a way to get our food tv fix without an actual Food Network.

I will admit, my immediate reaction was to hurry up and get FiOS. Which I'm sure is just what you Scripps guys hoped would happen. But perhaps you have underestimated our collective laziness, or our interest in not creating annoying scenarios that involve long hours waiting at home for service people that will more than likely not show up between 8am and 4pm no matter what we do. Plus, I heard that the FiOS people have to dig up your yard to run lines or something and the last thing we need right now is to put the landscapers back on the list of people to pay, it's the dead of winter for crying out loud. Unless...would HGTV come and redo my yard if it gets ripped up by the FiOS installer???

Okay, people. It's time to kiss and make up. I want to see Genevive fix up my friend Monica's basement when her episode of Dear Genevive airs on HGTV in March. And I'm wondering how that new Iron Chef is doing. Is that annoying woman with the $10 meals still on??? And where is Guy Fieri off to today? Will the original Iron Chef (in Japanese, with the English voiceovers) ever come back??? Cablevision, Scripps, you know you love each other. So please. Kiss and make up. Or let us trade the 78 channels we never watch for the two we want. Either way. Let us know.

Thanks and best regards,
Robyn