I came back from San Diego to discover that Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and a bunch of other Viacom-owned channels had been suddenly pruned from my DirecTV satellite feed. Viacom and DirecTV are both offering up videos and press releases that essentially all say "The other side took away your channels because they're greedy bastards and they want to make more money off this arrangement." Both sides are basically correct, though it appears that the Viacom side is fibbing a little, making it sound like DirecTV made the decision to take those channels off the air when the negotiations reached the nuclear level. Obviously, they hope angry DirecTV subscribers will put pressure on the satellite provider and cause them to accept a worse deal. Maybe so. One wonders how Viacom advertisers feel about their commercials running in a lot fewer homes.
Ultimately, this is just a battle of companies that rake in billions but want to rake in a little more. The most likely outcome is that it'll all be settled soon, that my rates will go up and each side will be satisfied it's making more $$$. In the meantime, the big winner is Jon Stewart who got a very funny segment out of the dispute…
