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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Viacom keeps cable nets on Time Warner
Time Warner customers dodged the bullet.
In a contract showdown, Viacom, which owns 19 cable networks on Time Warner’s lineup, had threatened to take a hike if the cable company didn’t agree to an increase in its carriage fees.
Word came just before the midnight deadline that a deal had been reached, and MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and all the other Viacom networks would remain.
On Wednesday customers saw a “crawl” warning viewers that the aforementioned channels would go dark at midnight if Viacom and Time Warner didn’t reach a deal. More than 13 million subscribers nationwide and 300,000 in Central Texas would have been affected.
Viacom demanded fee increases of about 25 cents per subscriber per month for its channels, according to The Associated Press. Time Warner said it would not pay more, claiming it would have to pass on that increase to customers. At this time we do not know whether Time Warner agreed to pay more or Viacom agreed to take less.
In November Time Warner had a similar smackdown with LIN TV, which owns our NBC affiliate KXAN and several other TV stations around the country. LIN wanted cash for carriage; Time Warner didn’t want to pay. At the end of the face-off, however, Time Warner did pay.
Whatever the contract resolution between Viacom and Time Warner, the result is that our cable lineup still includes “SpongeBob,” Jon Stewart and many hours of MTV reality shows. Happy New Year.
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Time Warner yanking 19 cable channels? Happy New Year!
If you woke up this morning to an ominous crawl on one of your kids’ favorite cable channels, you know that Time Warner, the major cable provider in Central Texas with some 300,000 customers, is at it again.
Seems like only yesterday (actually it was only a month ago) that Time Warner had a smackdown with LIN TV, which owns our NBC affiliate KXAN. At issue was money, of course. LIN wanted cash for carriage, and Time Warner didn’t want to pay. At the end of the face-off, however, Time Warner did pay.
Now it’s Viacom, the media giant that has 19 cable channels on Time Warner — including Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV and VH1. The message that greeted viewers of “SpongeBob” this morning and “The Daily Show” late last night said that all of the Viacom channels will disappear from Time Warner at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if an agreement is not reached.
The last time Time Warner was in this position we lost our NBC station on cable for a month. The breakdown will affect 13 million Time Warner subscribers nationwide, which you would think would be a very big deal. This is, by the way, a national corporate confrontation, not anything that the Central Texas Time Warner folks have anything to do with.
Viacom has asked for fee increases from Time Warner about 25 cents per subscriber for its channels, according to the Associated Press. Time Warner is refusing, claiming they would have to pass on that increase to customers.
Here is the full list of Viacom channels that could go off Time Warner at midnight tonight:
Comedy Central, CMT: Pure Country, Logo, Palladia, MTV, MTV 2, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, MTV Tr3s, Nickelodeon, Noggin, Nick 2, Nicktoons, Spike, The N, TV Land, VH1, VH1 Classic and VH1 Soul.
Negotiations are either ongoing or not, depending on which corporate statement you believe.
Time Warner says the two sides are at the table, trying to work things out. Viacom insists Time Warner is not negotiating at all. The truth may lurk somewhere in between: negotiations are ongoing, but nobody is prepared to compromise.
Can’t we all just get along?
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