Oscar is being held hostage in the latest battle between the New York City-area ABC affiliate and cable provider Cablevision. At midnight last night, ABC7 cut off their feed to Cablevision, leaving millions Oscarless. This caught our attention not only because it was a spectacularly obnoxious negotiating ploy on ABC’s part, but also because local media are giving Cablevision customers some pretty bad advice.

The New York Daily News, in particular, offered advice to its readers on how to watch the Oscars without cable. Their options included:

• Live Internet streams
• Liveblogs
• Twitter
• On an iPhone
• At the home of a friend with cable

Have we already forgotten that television signals are beamed, for free, through the air? Yes, you can connect an antenna to your television set and watch the Oscars. In fact, we hear that you can get rid of cable entirely and still have lots of interesting things on your television to stare at. If you’ve forgotten how to install a TV antenna, or never knew in the first place, the Internet can show you how.

Caught in the middle of ABC Channel 7 vs Cablevision? Here’s how you can still watch the Oscars [New York Daily News]

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