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Your cable bill is going up this year — and next year, and the year after that — with no end in sight.

The average digital cable customer already pays almost $75 a month, according to research firm Centris. And many subscribers pay more than $100 to tune in to everything from “The Daily Show” to “Jersey Shore.”

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Cablevision Systems, a New York-area cable provider, said Friday it was no longer carrying The Food Channel and HGTV, two channels operated by Scripps Networks Interactive, in a dispute over distribution rights fees.

“We are sorry that Scripps’ current financial difficulties are making it impossible for them to continue our relationship on terms that are reasonable for Cablevision and our customers,” Cablevision (CVC, Fortune 500) said in a statement. “We wish Scripps well and have no expectation of carrying their programming again, given the dramatic changes in their approach to working with distributors to reach television viewers.”

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Fox Networks and Time Warner Cable announced an agreement Friday that will avert the disruption of Fox network programming to 15 million subscribers of Time Warner Cable and an affiliated company.

The agreement, the terms of which were not disclosed, was announced several hours after a midnight deadline and just before Fox was to air the Sugar Bowl football game between Cincinnati and the University of Florida.

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“Oh, well…who cares what congress does, right? Time warner might not have fox programming anymore!!!!” said one Twitter user whose focus quickly switched from Thursday’s health care vote.

The nation’s second largest cable provider is at odds with Fox’s parent company, News Corp., as well as the Weather Channel and Scripps Networks whose content licensing contracts with Time Warner Cable will expire at the end of the year.

Full Story at msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – President Obama’s top antitrust official and some senior Democratic lawmakers are preparing to rein in a host of major industries, including airline and railroad giants, moving so aggressively that they are finding some resistance from officials within the administration.

The official, Christine A. Varney, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, has begun examining complaints by the phone companies Verizon and AT&T that their rivals — major cable operators like Cablevision and Cox Communications — improperly prevent them from buying sports shows and other programs that the cable companies produce, industry lawyers said

Full Story At money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (Fortune) — You don’t often get to use “Time Warner” and “hot stock” in the same sentence, given the company’s horrible investment performance over the years.

But Time Warner’s pending deal to unburden itself of AOL by dumping it onto its shareholders is one of those times, thanks to an insight I got from tax guru Bob Willens of Robert Willens LLC. Willens, who lives and breathes (and probably dreams about) the tax code, says that Time Warner’s plan to distribute AOL stock to its shareholders in a tax-free transaction is benefiting from a little-noticed change last year in the rules governing “hot stocks.”

Full Story At  msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – You’re watching Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” when suddenly you see a commercial for the Mustang convertible you’ve been eyeing — with a special promotion from Ford, which knows you just ended your car lease.

A button pops up on the screen. You click it with the remote and are asked whether you want more information about the car. You respond “yes.” Days later, an information packet arrives at your home, the address on file with your cable company.