DIRECTV DROPS BET & 26 OTHER VIACOM STATIONS
26 Viacom properties including Comedy
Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, CMT, Logo, and BET, have gone dark for
DirecTV’s 20 million subscribers after both sides failed to reach an
agreement over carriage fees.
According to a statement released by DirecTV shortly after midnight, Viacom is looking to increase fees by up to 30% — over $1 billion. “We have absolutely no problem compensating Viacom fairly, but they have now knowingly put our customers in the unreasonable position of either accepting their extravagant financial demands or losing some of their favorite TV shows,” said DirecTV exec VP Derek Chang.
Viacom released a separate statement claiming DirecTV — America’s second largest pay-TV operator — has been enjoying “way below market rates” for the past seven years, and the fee increase amounts to only “a couple pennies per day, per subscriber.”
Analysts say a dispute over programming fees was inevitable due to the significant ratings drop experienced by Viacom in recent years. “We anticipated such an event, although we said we didn’t know if it would happen in weeks, months or years,” said Todd Juenger of Bernstein Research.
Still, Viacom’s importance to DirecTV means the content provider will likely get what it wants. “Viacom claims its programming
represents 20% of the viewing on DirecTV,” said Alan Gould of Evercore
Partners, “so we would assume DirecTV would lose some subscribers,
particularly families that want Nickelodeon.”
A similar dispute between Dish Network and AMC led the latter to pull its channels from the satellite provider. But analysts expect the matter to be settled in time for the return of AMC’s popular TV show Walking Dead.
Viacom on Wednesday shut off access to full-length episodes on its own websites such as MTV.com and ComedyCentral.com to all visitors, even those who have no stake in the dispute.
Viacom’s sites are now taken over by a video ad that informs visitors about the dispute and prompts people to call DirecTV to complain.
Some areas of the websites that once offered full episodes now say “Full episodes are currently unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Certain episodes of Viacom programming, such as two-week-old episodes of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” were available online at Hulu. Others, like “Jersey Shore,” were blocked.
SCOOP: VIACOM / DIRECTV
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
According to a statement released by DirecTV shortly after midnight, Viacom is looking to increase fees by up to 30% — over $1 billion. “We have absolutely no problem compensating Viacom fairly, but they have now knowingly put our customers in the unreasonable position of either accepting their extravagant financial demands or losing some of their favorite TV shows,” said DirecTV exec VP Derek Chang.
Viacom released a separate statement claiming DirecTV — America’s second largest pay-TV operator — has been enjoying “way below market rates” for the past seven years, and the fee increase amounts to only “a couple pennies per day, per subscriber.”
Analysts say a dispute over programming fees was inevitable due to the significant ratings drop experienced by Viacom in recent years. “We anticipated such an event, although we said we didn’t know if it would happen in weeks, months or years,” said Todd Juenger of Bernstein Research.
A similar dispute between Dish Network and AMC led the latter to pull its channels from the satellite provider. But analysts expect the matter to be settled in time for the return of AMC’s popular TV show Walking Dead.
Viacom on Wednesday shut off access to full-length episodes on its own websites such as MTV.com and ComedyCentral.com to all visitors, even those who have no stake in the dispute.
Viacom’s sites are now taken over by a video ad that informs visitors about the dispute and prompts people to call DirecTV to complain.
Some areas of the websites that once offered full episodes now say “Full episodes are currently unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Certain episodes of Viacom programming, such as two-week-old episodes of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” were available online at Hulu. Others, like “Jersey Shore,” were blocked.
SCOOP: VIACOM / DIRECTV
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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