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Time Warner May Drop Jon Stewart, SpongeBob Along With the Ball

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | December 31, 2008 | +

Yet another reason to love large media companies, such as the one I work for: Viacom and my own evil overlords, Time Warner, are locked in a subscription-rate dispute that could knock MTV, Comedy Central and every other Viacom channel off Time Warner Cable at midnight tonight. Viacom is running ads and TV messages urging TWC viewers to revolt, while the corporations are in a public dispute over who is killing Dora the Explorer.

As the old African proverb states: When the elephants go to war, the grass loses VH1. Yay, greedy media bastards!

The root of the argument, simplified: Viacom wants more money for itself, whereas Time Warner wants more money for itself. Simple enough? If you want more details, Nikke Finke has them. 

Carriage disputes like this are not unheard of: in 2000, TWC blacked out ABC in a dispute with Disney. If the past is any guide, this one will not last too long, but it may be enough to give some already shaky customers reason to consider satellite, or getting their cable fix via Hulu, Joost, Comedy Central online, and so on.

Or just to break out those videogames they got for Christmas and screw TV altogether. What’s your Viacom plan B?

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  • youheardit

    My Viacom Plan B is to continue living in New Jersey. Cablevision! In your face, Manhattan!

  • tyrantking

    Who watches live tv anymore? Anything that is missed can easily be replaced via torrent. Also, I’m way to busy with Rock Band 2 and Prince of Persia.

  • plukasiak

    the good news is that it adds to the effort to require “ala carte” cable channel offerings. I don’t need nickelodeon, or CMT, or MTV, or most of what Viacom has to offer — but I wind up paying for those networks (and dozens of other useless ones) anyway. Since the technology exists (and is cheap enough) to allow for ala carte cable, why don’t we have it?

  • overcharged

    Let the Viacom Blackout be permanent!
    I will have no problem doing without 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. Why should I be charged more for channels that I don’t watch?

  • Bemused

    Are there really five MTV channels? It begs the question, “Why?”

  • rhys1882

    A la carte is not going to happen. Time Warner of course caved. There was no way this was going to happen.

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