Why thousands of NJ viewers might lose NBC Sunday

A dispute between NBCUniversal and a cable company serving many northern New Jersey towns could shut down access to several cable stations — as well as local NBC and Telemundo stations — according a report.

Variety reports NBCUniversal and Charter Communications are in a "carriage-negotiation standoff" that could affect millions of customers of Charter-Spectrum cable nationwide. Comcast-owned NBCU was set this week to begin airing a crawl on NBCU channels, alerting them to a possible programming blackout and urging them to pressure Charter into a more flexible stance.

According to the Variety report, Charter, which merged this year with Time Warner Cable, rejected a package price for NBC channels, and the parties still haven't been able to come to terms.

NBCU cable channels include Bravo, E!, Syfy, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, and Oxygen. The variety report said access to local NBC and Telemundo programming would "presumably" be affected.

According to Charter's website, it serves customers in Cliffside, Edgewater, Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, Fairview, Fort Lee, Guttenburg, Leonia, Little Ferry, Moonachie, Palisades Park, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park and Teterboro.

A Daily News report estimates about 1 million customers in New York would be affected. Among the first major programming events to be affected: the Sunday Night Football matchup between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers.