TWC to lose up to 19 Viacom channels by 1.1.09

Yes, and this Milwaukee boy loved that it was taped in the Pabst Theater!

 

CRAP...I been trying to call them all day myself with No FRIG Luck. My girls live on NOGGIN and they learn alot from those shows. They will loose alot of customers.

 

The only one we watch is Nick Jr - Frankie LOVES Sponge Bob/The Backyardagains/and the Wonder Pets - Good grief, if we loose that channel it's gonna break my little dogs heart.:cry:

Sincerely - he hears the music and runs to get on the bed and watch - it's like his baby sitter. :mrgreen:

 

I'm telling you there are a lot of parents very nervous tonight!!! Thank goodness we have taped as many shows as we have. And does anyone know if the Preschool On Demand will still be available? They could at least see shows that way.

 

How is he doing, non TV wise?

Pullo can't stand TV.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/viacom_time_warner_cable

Time Warner Cable and Viacom reach deal

LOS ANGELES – Time Warner Cable Inc. said Wednesday it reached a deal with Viacom Inc. on carriage fees, avoiding a blackout of 19 cable channels including MTV and Comedy Central.

The two sides, citing disagreement over fee hikes, had threatened a damaging blackout at midnight Eastern time that would have cut off shows such as "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "The Colbert Report" to about 15.7 million subscribers.

Shortly after agreeing to extend a midnight deadline by an hour, Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley said the sides agreed on a new contract.

The handshake deal meant the channels will not go dark and a joint statement was expected within the hour, Dudley said.

Viacom had mounted an advertising onslaught warning customers of the possible blackout, taking out ads in major newspapers and Web sites from The New York Times and TVGuide.com featuring a tearful "Dora the Explorer" crying and clinging to her monkey pal, Boots.

"Why is Dora crying?" the ad read. "Tonight you will lose Nickelodeon and 18 other channels from your TV." It then prompted people to call their cable company to complain.

The dispute would have affected some 13.3 million Time Warner Cable subscribers, mainly in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas; and 2.4 million customres of Bright House Networks in Michigan, Indiana, California, Alabama and Florida.

Time Warner Chief Executive Glenn Britt on Wednesday had called Viacom's demand for a 12 percent increase in fees — an extra $39 million on top of the estimated $300 million it pays Viacom annually — extortion and outrageous given the recession. Viacom countered that the requested increase amounted to an extra $2.76 annually per subscriber.

Details of the deal were not immediately available.

Viacom had argued that Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees made up less than 2.5 percent of the Time Warner cable bill.

Spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said that despite ranking high in the ratings, Viacom's cable networks' average daily license fee was 65 percent lower than that of networks run by The Walt Disney Co., News Corp.'s Fox, Time Warner Inc.'s Turner Broadcasting System and Discovery Communications Inc.

Analyst Michael Nathanson with Bernstein Research said Viacom's channels had been "underpriced relative to their peers."

Public carriage fee disputes of this scale between a programmer and a cable operator are not that common, especially when there's a threat of a blackout, said Derek Baine, senior analyst at SNL Kagan in Monterey, Calif. Typically, both sides agree on contract extensions as they negotiate on terms, he said, and any blackouts don't last long because TV operators get calls from outraged customers.

One prominent carriage fee fight in recent years was in 2004, between Viacom and EchoStar, the former name of Dish Network Corp. Shows were dropped for two days.

In October, Time Warner Cable wrestled with LIN TV Corp., which operates local TV stations affiliated with NBC, CBS, Fox and CW. But this time, Time Warner Cable faced Viacom, the largest cable programmer, not a small independent with a handful of channels.

The channels in the dispute were Comedy Central, Logo, Palladia, MTV, MTV 2, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, MTV Tr3s, Nickelodeon, Noggin, Nick 2, Nicktoons, Spike, The N, TV Land, VH1, VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul and CMT: Pure Country.

Viacom shares rose 88 cents, or 4.5 percent, to close at $20.12 on Wednesday, while Time Warner Cable shares fell 31 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $21.45.
___

AP Business Writer Deborah Yao in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

 

It is sad that TV has become that important. It might have been good for these channels to go off the air.

 

:iagree: But my 3 yo loves Dora and Diego, and I don't know what I'd do if he couldn't have them in his life! He's learned things from them that I wouldn't think to teach him, like spanish words, and I've even learned spanish from them too! He doesn't sit and watch TV all day, by any means, but I know I get one solid hour at night, from 7-8, when I can have quiet time and he's happy watching those 2 shows back to back. Luckily we have Directv, so I didn't have to be nervous yesterday worrying about losing them, or I would have been DVRing them as well!

 

I think maybe you misinterpreted my post. The parents are nervous because they know how much their kids enjoy these shows. It's not because suddenly they'd have to figure out how to parent them once the shows went off the air and couldn't sit them down in front of it for hours on end. Yeah, I was nervous because even though we have a bunch of stuff taped for my son Noggin is the only channel on TV that he will watch and it would have been hard for me to explain that it had to go away.

 

Well they made a deal, so no withdrawal for Frankie.

He's doing really good, thanks for asking! The acupuncture treatment works wonders and he's typically almost 100% within a few days. He's a tough little dog, thank goodness -- when he's out of commission it's not the same without the crazed black streak flying around the house :lol:

Pets to Pullo, hope he's doing well too! Happy New Year!

 

Altho my girls learn alot from Noggin, they also have play time that involves no TV. They love to listen to Kids Bop and dance around...another form of exercise for their Mommy :mrgreen: