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Ryan Nakashima

LOS ANGELES — The Fox television network pulled back from the brink on Friday, allowing its signals to continue for millions of cable subscribers beyond a midnight deadline as it continued to seek higher fees for its programming.

The News Corp.(NWS Quote) broadcaster had threatened to force two cable companies — Time Warner Cable(TWC Quote) and Bright House Networks — to drop the Fox broadcast signal from 14 of its TV stations and half a dozen of its cable channels as a contract expired at midnight Thursday.

Even as talks continued into Friday, the conciliatory stance made it appear a disruption would not occur — likely preserving access to the Sugar Bowl college football game (starting at 8:30 p.m. EST) and other programming for more than 6 million cable subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, Fla., and other markets.

It was unclear how long the reprieve would last, however. That left fans looking forward to the Florida-Cincinnati bowl matchup in doubt about whether they would need to head to sports bars with a satellite TV hookup to cheer on their teams.

“It leaves some people up in limbo as to whether to leave their homes to watch the game,” said Dan Beiley, 28, president of the Gotham Gators, a University of Florida alumni club in New York. “It’s certainly unfortunate that it came to all this.”

Sen. John Kerry, (D., Mass.), who earlier urged the companies to preserve TV access throughout the college football bowl season, said he was “pleased” at the decision to keep Fox programming on cable while talks went on.

 

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