LOS ANGELES – "SpongeBob SquarePants" might get squeezed off
Time Warner Cable.
Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central
and 16 other channels will go dark for 13 million subscribers at 12:01
a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal with Time Warner Cable Inc.
is not agreed upon by then.
The impasse would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like
Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert
Report" will be cut off on the nation's second-largest cable operator.
Time Warner Cable primarily serves people in New York state, the
Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.
We just recently switched to Grande Communications so unfortunately I will still
receive MTV and Comedy Central but I still don't get BookTV. Sigh. Time Warner
did put out a passive aggressive press release:
We sympathize with the fact that Viacom’s advertising business
is suffering and that their networks’ ratings have largely been
declining. However, we can’t abide their attempt to make up their lost
revenue on the backs of Time Warner Cable customers. We’ve negotiated
in good faith and made several concessions to help reach a fair and reasonable
deal. We’ve asked for an extension of the current contract while we continue
to negotiate. But Viacom doesn’t appear to be interested in what’s fair and
reasonable for American consumers – they’re only interested in propping
up their sagging bottom line, and they are poised to pull their networks
from Time Warner Cable customers tonight.
Basically, they are telling Viacom, "Sorry ratings are down and people aren't watching
your programming but you still have to pay." Heh. You mean people aren't watching
wonderful programming like The Hills, Tila Tequila, and The Daily Show on non-stop
rerun. What? I can't believe it! I used to be a Daily Show and Colbert fan. Not so much
anymore. Their jokes got old. I mean really how many times have you heard the
Christians are homophobic bigots and President Bush is dumb jokes?
