Newsday Nixes FiOS Promos

Stop the presses!

Now that Cablevision owns Newsday, the Long Island newspaper is not interested in taking the advertising dollars dangled by Verizon for FiOS, the The New York Times reports today.

The episode “raises troubling ethical and practical questions” for Newsday, the Times suggests.

Verizon, however, is not “perturbed” by the newspaper’s decision, according to the Times. “Customers are still coming to us, and the net of this is Cablevision doesn’t get the benefit of our revenue,” Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe says.

Sounds to me like Verizon got a whole lot more free publicity out of raising a stink in The New York Times than it would have from buying ads in Newsday.

In which case: Well played, FiOS guys!