News Corp Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said on Wednesday that he now expects the company's Fox Networks will not reach a carriage agreement with Time Warner Cable in time to avoid Fox's channels going off the air midnight on Thursday.

Carey said in an internal memo to staff that Fox channels may very well go off the air on Time Warner Cable as the two sides had yet to reach an agreement.

Some may ask why Fox isn't providing an extension while negotiations continue -- the fact is that we've been trying since the summer to negotiate a fair deal and that further extensions simply extend the period of time that Time Warner profits from our marquee programing without fairly compensating Fox for it, said Carey.

Carey said negotiations with the cable company are ongoing.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts stepped in last week and asked both sides to consider arbitration while keeping Fox programing on Time Warner Cable's systems as negotiations continue.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt welcomed the proposal by Kerry for arbitration. A News Corp spokeswoman said the company would soon respond to Kerry's suggestion.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing Bernard Orr)

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