Providing their customers with an update on the status of the current blackout of popular Viacom channels, DirecTV has provided some new information about the current state of negotiations. On its web site today, the company indicated that DirecTV and Viacom met several times throughout the day continuing to work toward a resolution to the contract dispute and arrive at a “fair” price for the programming.
At stake, for millions of DirecTV satellite television subscribers, is a total of 17 channels including several popular channels of children’s programming from Nickelodeon, plus the shows on MTV, VH1, TV Land, BET, CMT, Comedy Central, and Spike.
According to DirecTV, Viacom “demanded that DIRECTV customers pay 30% increase ($1 billion bonus) just to keep the same channels they already had. Next, they suspended their 17 channels from their DIRECTV viewers. Then, when DIRECTV tried to help customers remain connected to Viacom hits online, Viacom denied it to everyone — not just DIRECTV customers.”
DirecTV had tried to keep its customers happy during the negotiations by pointing them to alternate means of viewing the programming that was under a blackout on their televisions.
“First we launched this website as a resource for our customers to get the latest and most accurate information. We also built a navigation tool to help you and others find Viacom shows for free on their websites while we worked to return the channels Viacom took away. (By the way, you can still get the best Viacom shows on hulu.com. ) Then we offered 8 free Encore channels (including Encore Family) and worked with our other programming partners to open up another four networks usually reserved to a smaller group of subscribers — PBS Sprout, The Hub, TV One and Fuse — to make them available to everyone. We’ve also created new Mix channels in place of Viacom channels to enable you with still other alternatives.”