Time Warner Subscribers to Be Left in the Dark as of Ja

12/31/2008


Good thing I don't watch TV.. I just have a dead-for-a-day 30GB Zune to deal with. Is your cable provided by Time Warner Cable? If so, you are likely going to find yourself missing some major cable channels and popular series as 2009 begins, including South Park, The Daily Show and The Hills. Viacom, the parent company behind MTV Networks, has issued a statement saying that Time Warner Cable has made a move "to force such channels as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV off the air." The issue is over the fees Viacom charge cable companies to air their programming, which include 19 different channels that fall under the MTV Networks' label, including the ones mentioned above, plus Spike TV, VH1, TV Land, Nicktoons (home of the soon-to-debut Wolverine and the X-Men), The N, Noggin and Logo. Viacom has asked for an increase in these carriage fees, which Time Warner is battling them on. According to Viacom, "We have asked for an increase of less than 25 cents per month, per subscriber, which adds up to less than a penny per day for all 19 of MTV Networks' channels. We make this request because TWC has so greatly undervalued our channels for so long. Americans spend more than 20% of their TV viewing time watching our networks, yet our fees amount to less than 2.5% of what Time Warner generates from their average customer." Meanwhile, Nikke Finke is reporting at deadlinehollywooddaily.com that Time Warner counters that Viacom "have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging. Basically we're trying to hold the line for our customer." Viacom's statement goes on to say, "We are sorry to say that for Time Warner Cable customers our networks will go dark as of 12:01 on January 1st, denying Time Warner customers shows like Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob Squarepants, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and The Hills." Not mentioned in Viacom's statement, but certainly of importance to many IGN readers, is Comedy Central's South Park, which will return with new episodes in March – though many fans are no doubt hoping this issue is resolved far earlier than that. However, the South Park characters do make an appearance in the following ad Viacom is now running encouraging Time Warner subscribers to complain about this turn of events. REFERENCED BY: Chancellor St. Blue SOURCE: http://tv.ign.com/articles/941/941226p1.html classic layouts