UPDATE: Negotiations continued late Friday/early Saturday between Viacom and AT&T and Viacom channels remained up on AT&T’s platforms, officials told USA…
UPDATE: Negotiations continued late Friday/early Saturday between Viacom and AT&T and Viacom channels remained up on AT&T’s platforms, officials told USA TODAY.
DirecTV customers may soon find themselves with fewer channels.
At midnight Friday, the contract between AT&T and Viacom is set to expire, meaning popular stations such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central could go black.
Viacom is warning AT&T’s DirecTV subscribers that they may lose access to 23 channels if a dispute over fees isn’t resolved before the contract expires. Viacom also is encouraging customers to contact AT&T.
„Unfortunately, AT&T is abusing its new market position by favoring its own content – which significantly underperforms Viacom’s – to stifle competition,“ Viacom said in a statement Tuesday.
However, AT&T is hoping „to avoid any interruption to the channels some of our customers care about,“ the company told USA TODAY in a statement late Tuesday.
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“We’re disappointed to see Viacom put our customers in the middle of their negotiations,“ AT&T said in the statement. „We are on the side of customer choice and value and want to keep Viacom’s channels in our customers’ lineups.
