It seems that Time Warner and Viacom are in a contract battle regarding the fees associated with Viacom channels appearing on the media giant’s cable system. HuffingtonPost.com states :
“Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark on Time Warner Cable Inc. at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by then.
The impasse over carriage fee hikes would mean “SpongeBob” and other shows like “The Daily Show” will be cut off to 13 million subscribers, said spokesman Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable. The nation’s second-largest cable operator primarily serves customers in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.
Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22 percent and 36 percent per channel, an amount that could increase customers’ cable bills, Dudley said. Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said the requested increase was in the very low double-digit percentage range.”
I’d hate to lose Comedy Central, and the children’s programming but on the bright side, if I lose all these channels there’s no reason to pay for cable anymore, so I could save a lot of money every month. 😉