Time Warner Cable near Thursday contract expiration

ime Warner Cable’s customers could lose access to “American Idol,” “the Simpsons” and some of the NFL playoffs if the cable company fails to resolve a fee standoff with Fox by Dec. 31.
As a midnight Thursday deadline approaches, Time Warner Cable offered an olive branch that could leave the Fox network and some of its cable TV channels on the lineup for millions of subscribers — for now. But an executive at Fox owner News Corp. indicated a signal interruption was likely.