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Time Warner, Viacom in major dispute – what it may mean to UFC fans
By Zach Arnold | December 31, 2008
Update (12/31): The two sides have now kissed and made up.
If you are a subscriber to Time Warner cable and you are a UFC or TNA fan, you may not be watching either league on your television set in the near future.
According to The LA Times:
Viacom Inc. has threatened to pull its programming in a high-stakes showdown over pricing. Nearly 2 million homes in the Los Angeles area that are customers of Time Warner Cable Inc. could lose such Viacom channels as Nickelodeon, MTV, VH-1, Comedy Central, Spike, TV Land and BET.
“It rarely comes to this,” said television consultant Larry Gerbrandt of Media Valuation Partners in Beverly Hills. “If they go off the air, no one wins. Customers will get upset at Time Warner and they could lose subscribers, and Viacom will lose important advertising revenue.”
The New York Times says that the cable dispute will effect customers in major cities such as New York, LA, and Dallas. Nikki Finke further elaborates.
For a full media round-up of this developing story, check out this Orange County Register post.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wouldn’t be worried. Even if the channels are removed it will be short term. Customers will get their way in the long run.
Agreed@45 Huddle…a compromise will be reached I’m sure…as those channels make up a significant percentage of TWC.
viacom pulled the same thing with dish network a few years ago
Well, thank God I have Comcast! I never thought I would say such a thing…
And it’s not just Time Warner, it’s also Bright House.
Fuck!! I can’t miss the Charm School reunion on Sunday on VH1!! 🙁
Good thing I still have Degrassi! And this is over Viacom being greedy douchebags. Good for Time Warner for sticking to their guns. Viacom demanded $37 million, and it’s Viacom who are pulling the stations, not Time Warner. I believe Viacom tried a similar stunt with Dish Network a few years ago, and Dish told them to get fucked. They settled eventually.
And if Viacom got their way, Time Warner would jack up subscription prices, which fucks over the customers. Dish Network refused to jack up their prices. I think I am going to have to switch over to Dish.
Thank god for corporations… jk jk, but this is definitely a case of greed gone awry!!
Disney is even worse. With The Disney Channel & ESPN, they get paid even more money from cable stations to carry their channels. All it does it increase the cost of cable.
‘affect.’
Viacom is “suggesting” that people watch their channels online instead (on Viacom’s websites, where presumably they keep all the ad revenue and the number per viewer is larger than whatever they’re getting from TWC currently, but smaller than the number that they want).
I’m all for having the line held on cable rates, but I think a lot of people are getting as sick of TWC’s games as they are Comcast.
Well, that shows me what I get reading FightOpinion first in the morning:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/01/01/time-warner-viacom-reach-agreement-bromance-crisis-averted/
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Viacom and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement in principle on Thursday that avoided a blackout that would have prevented more than 13 million US subscribers from seeing popular TV shows……..