Viacom to Time Warner: We’ll take Dora, and online episodes too
Time Warner Cable and Viacom’s drawn-out feud over rights fees could result in 13 million Time Warner and Bright House customers losing 19 popular channels, including Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, on January 1. That’s right, you could be saying sayonara to The Daily Show, The Hills and Spongebob Squarepants as soon as the clock strikes midnight. But that’s not all: Viacom is also threatening to yank online content. Happy New Year, eh?
Viacom’s cable networks are distributed by Time Warner, the fourth largest cable television provider in the U.S. Viacom has posted a message on sites it owns, such as MTV.com and VH1.com, alerting customers that they will lose their favorite shows on TV and online unless they act fast. Time Warner Cable’s director of digital communication (or someone posing as him), posted the following screencap to Twitter, according to DSL Reports, while Time Warner in-house speculation is brewing over whether or not the message is a scare tactic or if Viacom is ballsy enough to follow through with its threats.