Here is a quote from Wikipedia under the MSNBC listing:
Carriage Issues
As a result of a carriage agreement, MSNBC is currently not available to Verizon Fios TV subscribers in Verizon's Northern New Jersey grouping as well as areas in New York City. The reason for the lack of availability is an exclusive carriage agreement that MSNBC entered into with Cablevision, which services the areas in question. [10] The terms of the agreement (i.e. when the exclusive agreement expires) are unknown. The result of the agreement is that a competing content provider will be unable to offer MSNBC from where the broadcast originates. Also, as Verizon's subscriptions rise, MSNBC will be increasingly unavailable in one of the largest markets in the United States unless viewers subscribe to a second provider (either Cablevision or one of the satellite TV providers).
My question today is, what imbecile would make that deal with Cablevision. It's a win win for Cablevision and just the avoiding of a little delay for MSNBC. Sooner or later the people on Long Island and Northern NJ would demand MSNBC.
Also, it should have been pretty obvious that fiber optics would overtake cable. I am not sure about the timng of any of this but Roger Ailes used to work for NBC and he ran "America's Talking" the forerunner of MSNBC. Also from Wikipedia under the Roger Ailes listing.
After the announcement of Microsoft and NBC's partnership to create an online and cable news outlet, MSNBC, taking the place of America's Talking, Ailes left the network in February 1996 and was hired by Rupert Murdoch to create Fox News Channel for News Corporation. In addition, 89 additional employees of the NBC networks left with Ailes to help with the new channel's creation. Adding to a team in place at Fox News, they created the programming concept and proceeded to select space in New York. Ailes worked his staff through five months of grueling 14-hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before launch, on October 7, 1996.
Could there be a link here because MSNBC shot themselves in the foot by giving Cablevision an exclusive. Why? There is an election in 2008 and Americans who cannot see MSNBC are being deprived executed their right to vote in a manner of an informed citizen. Why should someone in NYC have more information than a voter on Long Island when the information is coming from national news shows. Does this not give an unfair advantage to right wing candidates in the Northern NJ and Long Island areas?