Fox, NBC U cable nets shuffled in NYC

Nets get boost from clusters

By MICHAEL LEARMONTH

Fox Business Network has landed a channel position in New York City, its most important market, triggering a shuffle that will give NBC Universal a prime channel cluster in the mid-teens on some of Time Warner Cable’s systems.

In the shuffle, NBC U nets and Fox’s two news channels each receive a cluster -- considered advantageous as they try to keep auds within the family -- starting Oct. 15.

Fox Business Network will get channel 43, former home of MSNBC, and Fox News Channel will move adjacent to it from channel 46 to channel 44, current home of NBC U’s Sci Fi Channel.

In exchange, NBC U is getting vastly better channel positions for many of its cable channels in New York City from the 40s into a channel 14-18 cluster, displacing ABC Family, A&E, History Channel and Discovery Channel, which move up the dial.

MSNBC moves to channel 14, next to CNBC at 15. USA Network, currently at channel 40, moves to 16, and Sci Fi, dis-placed by Fox News Channel, moves to 17. Bravo moves down the dial to channel 18 from channel 38.

ABC Family moves up to 38 from 14, A&E moves to 46 from 16, History moves to 40 from 17 and Discovery slides all the way to channel 66 from 18.