Fox Cable is more disappointed than ESPN and NBC the National Hockey League 2004-05 season has been called off, Daily Variety reported Thursday.

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The paper said the decision to cancel the season will be more disruptive for Fox Cable's regional sports networks than it will be for ESPN and NBC. The NHL and its players' announced Wednesday the season was canceled because they could not agree on a new contract.

Fox operations in Detroit, St. Louis and Boston have had poor ratings for programming aired in place of NHL games. Fox regional operations in southern U.S. cities have had better ratings results, with college basketball, college hockey and poker championships drawing audiences not much smaller than they had for NHL games.

ESPN2, the exclusive national-cable distributor of 40 regular-season NHL games, has actually doubled its hockey ratings by programming college basketball in place of the NHL. But Variety said ESPN is disappointed that it will not be able to televise NHL playoffs, which typically do better than regular-season games.

NBC said it planned to replace most of its NHL programming with what it called "profitable programming," including figure skating and skiing.