It has come down to the wire: there is now less than a day left before a 12:01 a.m. Sunday negotiation deadline that could mean Channel 7 will go off the air for Cablevision subscribers.

Oscar statues and traditional red carpet lead the way into the entrance of the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Sunday, March 25, 2001. (AP Photo/Kim Johnson)

The Walt Disney Co., parent company to WABC, threatened to suspend the signal indefinitely for Cablevision System Corp.’s 3.1 million customers in the Tri-State area at midnight Saturday, just ahead of The Academy Awards.

The two companies are engaged in a fee dispute: Disney wants an additional $40 million annually on top of the $200 million Cablevision pays for their three cable networks. Cablevision argues that to do so would require another rate increase for a channel that is broadcast free over the airwaves.

“There is one man who is going to decide whether New York gets to see the Oscars, and that’s Disney President and CEO Bob Iger,” Charles Schueler, Cablevision’s executive vice president of communications, said Friday. “We call on Bob Iger to stop holding his own viewers hostage, end his threats to pull the plug on ABC at midnight and instead work with us to reach a fair agreement. The switch is in Bob Iger’s hands.”

ABC executives shot back, as the back-and-forth has gone all week.

“It’s an insult to Cablevision customers that, with literally hours to go before losing access to ABC7, Cablevision is personally attacking Disney executives,” Rebecca Campbell, President and General Manager, WABC-TV, responded. “Does Cablevision have such little regard for its subscribers’ intelligence to think that they don’t know a negotiation takes two parties? The inconvenient truth is that ABC7 has been prepared to reach a fair agreement for two years and Cablevision has refused to do its part.

“If Cablevision CEO James Dolan and the Dolan Family Dynasty have any regard at all for the millions of customers who pay hard earned dollars for their service, they will order their troops to stop slinging mud and start cutting a deal,” she added.

With tough talk like that, it is hard to tell if thw two sides have any hope for a last-minute deal, much like what happened between Time Warner Cable and Fox over a similar broadcast network fee dispute late last year, or if it will result in a weeks-long blackout, like when Cablevision and Scripps Networks Interactive locked horns over compensation for Food Network and HGTV in January.

Although lawmakers have been urging the Federal Communications Commission to step in and ensure that the public don’t get caught in the crossfire, it is unclear if the FCC has been working to help bring about an amicable resolution.

Either way, Cablevision’s competitors are like a hardware store before a blizzard. John Bonomo, spokesman for Verizon, wouldn’t talk numbers, but put it this way: “Let’s just say our phones are ringing.”