<p>A dispute over a cheeky billboard aimed at tweaking CNN has Fox News Channel threatening to haul a sign company into court.</p><p>Fox claims the owners of the billboard, across the street from CNN's Atlanta offices, are refusing to post a message trumpeting Fox's successes in the ratings war between the networks.</p><p>According to a Thursday letter obtained by the Associated Press, the sign, which has been rented by Fox since 1999, would read: "Now That CNN's Ratings are Gone With the Wind, Our Work on This Board Is Done. We Love You Atlanta. Brought to you by your friends at FOX News Channel."</p><p>Below that message would be a less-than-subtle pitch to the hundreds of CNN employees who file past the board every day.</p><p>"Sign Up with America's Newsroom! Forward resumes to
[email protected]."</p><p>In the letter, Dianne Brandi, a lawyer for Fox, suggests Atlanta company Camfaux LLC may have buckled to pressure from CNN not to post the message.</p><p>"Should you choose not to put up the billboard immediately, we will consider all options available to us, including, of course, legal options," Brandi writes in the letter.</p><p>In the letter, Fox officials "demand in the strongest possible terms" the sign be changed by noon on Thursday. By about 4 p.m., it remained unchanged.</p><p>Camfaux president Tony Vergoven said he received the letter Thursday morning. He said that while his company owned the billboard when Fox began renting it, it has since been sold to Boardworks Outdoor Advertising, another Atlanta company.</p><p>"We have no control, or we'd be taking care of Fox," said Vergoven, who is referred to as "Tony Vergone" in the Fox letter.</p><p>Boardworks officials did not return phone calls Thursday seeking comment.</p><p>A CNN spokeswoman said officials who would know whether network executives talked to the billboard company were not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon.</p><p>"Using space to say negative things about any competitor doesn't seem meaningful or relevant," spokeswoman Megan Mahoney said in a prepared statement.</p><p>Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti said the network's contract to rent the billboard expires at the end of this month.</p><p>Since 1999, the sign overlooking CNN Center has alternately trumpeted Fox's triumphs or taken blatant jabs at CNN.</p><p>It featured legal reporter Greta Van Susteren, shortly after she bolted CNN for Fox, and accused the network of lacking patriotism during the war in Iraq.</p><p>For the past several months it has read, "Come Home Connie. CNN Needs You." Anchor Connie Chung was fired abruptly last March, not long after CNN founder Ted Turner called her "just awful" in an interview.</p><p>On a typical prime-time night during the last three months of 2003, Fox News Channel averaged 1.46 million viewers, CNN had 909,000 viewers and MSNBC had 293,000 viewers, according to Nielsen ratings.</p><p>Since then, Fox press releases have bragged about a nearly two-to-one advantage in some time slots, while CNN has boasted of neck-and-neck numbers during this spring's presidential primary voting and a larger overall number of viewers.</p>
