If an agreement between Fox and Altice, the parent company for Optimum cannot be reached, Optimum customers could lose a large chunk of their cable package just in time for the Major League Baseball playoffs.

A statement from the Fox Networks said negotiations between the two companies have been going on for "several months," leaving just a matter of hours until the existing agreement expires.

The disagreement between the two companies centers on carriage fees, or how much Altice must pay Fox to carry its networks. In addition to Fox the agreement also covers networks including FX, Fox Sports 1 and the National Geographic channels. The carriage agreement in question does not cover Fox News, Fox Business or the YES Network, according to Altice.

The Yankees first round playoff game with the Oakland A's will air on TBS.

"Altice refused to engage in any substantive discussion until just last week and is now asking for preferential treatment that does not reflect the marketplace," a statement from Fox said.

On the other side, Altice said it was negotiating with Fox in hopes of keeping the channels available for its customers.

"We are currently negotiating with 21st Century Fox and are disappointed that they have started threatening to black out certain channels in an effort to exact hundreds of millions of dollars in new fees from us and our customers," a statement from the cable provider said.

On a website dedicated to the disagreement Altice said programmers like Fox have "demanded increases as high as 400-1,000%." They cite an example of a gallon of milk as an example of what that would mean for another product. A gallon of milk at today's rate would cost $1.42, whereas an increase of 400 percent would increase that to $7.10, and a 1,000 percent increase would make the same gallon of milk cost $15.62.

The dispute between the two companies affects 2.4 million subscribers in the New York area, and more than 3 million people nationwide, according to Variety.

 

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