Peace On Our Tube

NEW YORK: Cable TV's own War of the Roses ended today with a deal between TIME Warner Cable and Fox News that a relieved Rudy Giuliani called "a win-win situation for everyone involved." Fox News will get to take on CNN and MSNBC in New York City, the nation's premier media market, plus access to 65 percent of the TIME Warner systems. In return, Fox will eventually allow TIME Warner to broadcast its channels across the Fox international satellite television network, giving the media conglomerate a slice of some overseas markets it currently doesn't reach. Giuliani, who expended considerable political capital as Fox's man in the trenches, is already getting heat for securing something of a sweetheart deal for his political bedfellow Murdoch. The mayor is chipping in one of the city's non-profit educational channels to TIME Warner, which will use it for Fox News until more room can be made on its system. The payoff for New Yorkers: 24-hour news from the owners of the tabloid New York Post, and an OJ-sized daily dose of the Senate campaign finance hearings, which only Fox News is carrying live and in their entirety.