Viacom, Bright House and Time Warner Cable's New Year present: No more MTV, Nickelodeon or 19 other channels

Yet another big media story has broken while I am on vacation: This time, it's the dispute between Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Viacom over retransmission fees, which threatens to see nearly two dozen cable channels yanked from the cable company's systems by 12:01 a.m.t omorrow, including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, CMT, TV Land and Noggin.

If you've turned on a Viacom cable channel today, you've seen the odd "crawl" at the bottom of the screen urging viewers to call Time Warner and Bright House and complain about the impasse; ads from Viacom showing popular cartoon characters such as Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants crying also ran in several newspapers, including the Tampa Tribune.

The cable companies say Viacom should keep the channels on while negotiating an increase in fees; Viacom says no way. The increases Viacom wants are reportedly between 22 and 26 percent per channel.

According to the Associated Press, the channels that would be affected are: 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.

Viacom, like many big media companies, has struggled to deal with huge debts in a crumbling economy. So it's no surprise that the corporation is playing hardball to try raising its retransmission fees -- the amounts paid to cable channels by cable companies for the rights to retransmit their content (because its channels are among the most popular, Forbes reported Viacom earns $300-million annually in such fees).

These payments have a been a source of ire in the media business for a while. Cable companies blame them for their ever-increasing subscription fees. And broadcast stations and networks wonder why they don't get similar payments for the way cable channels rebroadcast their content. Cable companies might respond that they are required to carry broadcast stations by the government; making them also pay for the channels might seem unfair.

This entire mess is a result of the odd way in which our cable and broadcast TV systems have evolved. As the crumbling economy and changing technology shift the media landscape, expect more food fights like this one to break out.

Right now, given that these cable channels make some of their revenue from advertising it would seem that a scenario where programming gets yanked will hurt both sides. So the question is: Which side is worried it will get hurt worse? And can this situation get pulled back from the brink by midnight?

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Comments

[anonymous]

dude, knology is an easy alternative in st. pete, cheaper than brighthouse and no drama

[Bob]

One word solution: Hulu.com (is that 2 words?)

Most of the Viacom shows that might go missing are available on Hulu including the Daily Show and Colbert.

[John]

In defense of satellite internet, it is only for rural areas. And it is 250 to purchase or 99 to lease for 59-69 with Hughesnet, not 900. Directv recomends WildBlue satellite internet, which is far inferior to Hughesnet, but still not at all at the prices quoted above. Now granted it isn't cable, but its decent for rural areas that have no option than Dialup. That is why in metros you get a discount with the phone/dsl provider when you have DirecTV. Directv is way superior when it comes to pricing. That's why they are #1 with JD Powers 7 years running. Ditch cable. Get DSL and Directv. Pay extra for NFL Netwrok, PLEASE!

[mr spanky]

Just to add on in summary. How much is that super fast (ha!) Directv internet you are enjoying.

Equipment $900.00. monthly fee $75.00. ACTUAL SPEED 28 kbps.

Brighthouse... 7,000 kbps. Um yeah, I'll take directv.

[mr spanky]

I find it funny how people say they should be paying less. Cable used to be $35.00 with time warner and phone and internet was 110 with verizon. Lets do the math and look at today where all three are 109.

Oh yeah. Lets pay less... Oh wait... we already are!

[Mary]

http://www.viacom.com/news/Pages/newstext.aspx?RID=1240003

[Mary]

This is where I got their info from.

[Me]

please express your concern to viacom.. let them know what a stupid move they made.

/CONTACT: Kelly McAndrew, +1-212-846-7455, +1-646-725-7428,
kelly.mcandrew@viacom.com, or Jeremy Zweig, +1-212-846-7503, +1-212-243-4724,
jeremy.zweig@viacom.com, or Susie Arons, +1-212-843-8033, +1-917-751-1776, all
of Viacom; or Carole Robinson, +1-212-846-8760, +1-917-860-5891,
carole.robinson@mtvstaff.com, or Mark Jafar, +1-212-846-8961, +1-646-239-6530,
mark.jafar@mtvstaff.com, all of MTV Networks/

[Mary]

Please call these people which are the viacom contacts.. Express to them the stupid move they made.... :
/CONTACT: Kelly McAndrew, +1-212-846-7455, +1-646-725-7428,
kelly.mcandrew@viacom.com, or Jeremy Zweig, +1-212-846-7503, +1-212-243-4724,
jeremy.zweig@viacom.com, or Susie Arons, +1-212-843-8033, +1-917-751-1776, all
of Viacom; or Carole Robinson, +1-212-846-8760, +1-917-860-5891,
carole.robinson@mtvstaff.com, or Mark Jafar, +1-212-846-8961, +1-646-239-6530,
mark.jafar@mtvstaff.com, all of MTV Networks/

[jeff]

People watch too much tv as it is. Read a book, spend time with your children or post comments to this site if you want to be entertained. Don't give any of them the satisfaction of watching you grovel for Spongebob or MTV Cribs.

[FLMom]

Viacom needs to think of the consumers first - Please don't pull these channels from Time Warner Cable or Brighthouse Networks!
http://www.floodthelines.com/viacomdontpullchannels/

umm screw viacom. ;)

[Stephen]

To be honest for a change I have to agree with the Cable Company for once in my life.

It seems ironic that they are doing this sooo close to the digital change.

The cable companies would like to give us more channels, but due to the "size" of analog channels they can't.

When the change happens Viacom and other massive companies will send a digital signal to cable companies that costs farrrrr less to do! But they want a 3X increase.

It would like going into work and you got 3 people to help you with you do your job. Then 2 weeks later you go ask for a raise!

There is more than enough channels out there to begin with. I would love to see some go away.

And a quick message to Direct TV people.
Direct Tv has contracts with these companies as well, dont think you are safe!!!
Your contract could be next.

[NEILLTY]

If Time Warner Does this, it will definitely go under. People will leave Time Warner for other companies like The World Leading cable DIRECTV, or Dish Network, which are not effected in this mess. Nickelodeon and MTV are primarily one of the top two channels on cable today.

[eb]

Unfortunately with time warner/brighthouse even if the channels are dropped the prices won't. They will gladly make you pay more to keep the channels, but won't make you pay less for losing them. As often as the prices have gone up with no real changes to the line ups or anything its ridiculous that we still get the short end of the bargain.

[David]

Good riddance to all those MTV channels. All they show is junk anyway.

[Brighthouse Employee]

Just thougtht I'd drop my two cents on this topic. I work for BHN and the skinny of the problem is that Viacom, the parent company that runs the above networks, is asking for three times the money that they have been currently charging to keep these channels available for all Time Warner companies. This would equal an increase of roughly $12 a year per customer.

I understand that there are a lot of people that are upset with the fact that BHN isn't going to do this...but seriously, three times the current rate to keep these channels active is a rip to you as a customer.

If these channels are not kept, there will be new channels added to the BHN, just not Viacom channels.

There have been any number of angry customers calling in to our centers saying that the will sue...give me a break. If you really want to file an action against someone, how about against Viacom themselves?

I would think that there are many people out there who are having enough problems making regular payments to all their different service providers, that to have a channel provider who wants to increase EVERYONES' monthly cable bill, would find this type of behavior to be in poor taste at best.

In Febuary '09 all cable services will be going Digital. This in turn means that the channel providers will spend less money per year on sending said programming out.

Digital service runs about half the cost of the current Analog service, that all channel providers use when sending signals to your cable providers. The cable providers then digitize the stream and send it out to you.

Either way you look at it, in a month it will cost all channel providers significantly less to provide you with services.

As a final note, I would like to give you a very small math equation.

There are on average ten million TW/BHN customers at any given time.

The savings for the Digital changeover is estimated at $9 per customer at the channel providers end.

TW/BHN Customers x Viacom proposed increase (yearly) + Digital savings = Viacocm projected revenue

10,000,000 X 12 = $120,000,000 + ($9 x 10,000,000) = $210,000,000

[diaz]

I think this is simple but good article.i like to know more news from this site...
thanks
dias

http://srishell.wordpress.com/about/

[mockdraught]

Helloooooooooooo, DirecTV.

[angel]

good!!! So my bill will be cheaper

[joe hillman]

the cable thieves, time warner/out house networks in particular, are evil personified.

i'm not sure there is a day that goes by that i don't thank my lucky stars i switched to directv over a decade ago.