'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner

[The Doctor.]

Source: AP

'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner

By RYAN NAKASHIMA – 40 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "SpongeBob SquarePants" may be getting squeezed off of Time Warner Cable.

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.

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.

"The issue is that they have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging," he said. "Basically we're trying to hold the line for our customer."

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Great... the only channels I watch. Anyone currently subscribing that can't handle an extra 23 cents/month probably needs to drop cable all together.

[Ian David]

1. I'd pay $30 a month to get The Daily Show & Colbert on YouTube and cancel my cable. n/t

[The Doctor.]

2. The way of the future...

Podcasts.

Bundled, packaged, on demand. Soon as a few clever folks get together, people will be able to subscribe to a specifically tailored set of programs.

I pretty well look forward to that.

Meanwhile, we still deal with the behemoths as they are.

[sce56]

6. Why pay I watch them all the time online for free!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/
there is a link there to the Colbert report

[47of74]

3. I remember when Dish got into a pissing contest with Viacom

I remember about five years ago when Dish got into a bit of a pissing contest with Viacom which resulted in all the Viacom channels getting turned off for about a while. If I remember right it even affected the Superbowl for some viewers.

[otohara]

34. Yep - Soon The Blame Game Commercials Will Start

to air and an agreement will be reached.

[rug]

4. Don't mess with SpongeBob..

[FlaGranny]

12. My grandson would be

inconsolable if he couldn't watch his "Pungeyob," but he gets it on DirecTV. He wants it to be on whenever he wants to watch it.

[rucognizant]

20. GOOD RIDANCE!

Several generations of children are missing out on elemental art appreciation exposure.
The British series of cartoons on Noggin are charming REAL art!
Several generations of professional artists are being denied work that requires skill!
WHAT IS IT? with adult women's bathing suits decorated with ugly cartoon characters?
Hopefully the deperession will pull this cognatively distorted visual stuff up out of the basement.

[walkaway]

54. Noggin going too. (nt)

[machI]

46. I can't stand SpongeBob

That cartoon rates in the same leage as The Barney Show

<>

[Nite Owl]

5. Thirteen million subscribers

is many times more viewers. Is Viacom suicical?

[Ian David]

8. Viacom is run by right-wing douchebags and adulterers. n/t

[Wabbajack_]

47. Adulterers?

[Ian David]

51. I have inside info, on whom I will not say. n/t

[Wabbajack_]

55. Yeah whatever...

[SoCalDem]

14. Dish is the answer..n/t

[rucognizant]

23. NO IT"S NOT!

I had Dish. In June 2005 signed up.............the day they installed they had written the wrong orders, I had to leave my job and come home. My son was home but he needed my assistance.....The independant installer advised me to cancel the order and start again, or I would lose out on the discount offered. I rescheduled, and they stood me up 4 times, at which point I said forgeaboutit and requested the return of my $49.00. It was returned to ny bank account within a month.....so I ASS -U-ME D it was an honest company.
By the time Katrina happened, my son was in hospice care in the nursing home.........all the volumes were turned down do I could see the pix but not the dialogue. So I called DIsh again and gave my debit card number for the initial payment. My son died 3 weeks later, and my daughter & I welcomed the distraction of Bill Mahr while waiting for the undertaker to drive out from Bangor.
So through that long fall/winter season, living in a rural area, 420 miles from my daughte's family, and with little money, I sat like a lump and watched TV.
( Disclaimer.......I never watched TV much for 2 decades)
15 months later; gas and food costs were creeping up, my SS income was NOT. I lost my little increase in income teaching Adult Ed , while my son was sick, To ease the burden I had Dish put me on pause. ( Their monthly fee was (creeping up).They charged $10.00 per month for the privilege, but the other charges were also put on pause. There was a multiple back & forth, phone call in early Dec. they dunning me for the $42.50 I owed them, my plea that until SS payday Jan. 3 I couldn't pay it. ( My car registration happens in Dec. an extra expense at a baf d time) I thought I had convinced them that I would send out a check on Jan 2nd.........until I came home from the grocery store and tripped over a box infront of my door left by UPS! It was Dec 22 the Friday before Xmas. Dish wanted their electronic equipment back. WHen I called trying to convince them that my shortfall would be over and I WANTED their service.........they said they were going to take $200. out of my bank account using the DeBIT CARD NUMBER THEY HAD SAVED FOR 15 MONTHS! ( not legal)
I rushed right down to the bank and closed my account opening another.......my balance was ONLY $158.00. The bank manager was wonderful, and bought 2 calendars that I had just whipped together to try to earn more money. I sent the equipment back the next day, and it took them a month to put back my $200.00. ( Which the bank a carried for me waiving any bounced check fees, a small local bank that has weathered the present crisis, by NOT getting involved with any larger banks or trying to double investors money. In other words being what a small bank SHOULD BE!) But let me tell you the following year, the confusion of that month made it really hard to determine how many calendars I had sold, so that I could pay the state sales tax. ( some I gave away)
What made me really mad, is they thought me guilty until proved innocent! Obviously, I a 66 year old single woman could NOT cough up the money until SS paid me, but I would have been able to catch up and pay them! Actually; when the bank manager bought those 2 calendars I could have paid DIsh the $42.50 immediately! Before Jan!
They never DID come take their damned dish off the roof! The DIrect TV guy did that, and last year I finaly snagged a DIsh TV truck to come pick it up from the yard where it had been lying. FOr 2 years they sent ads and called trying to sign me up again. I miss their programing it's better than Direct & cheaper.........but NO WAY WILL I DEAL WITH THEM!
It's Dec. again...car registration, nad of course the snowplow guy has jumped from $10. to $20. per plow job. Doing with out NOT AN OPTION!

[Speciesamused]

28. My condolences to you on the loss of your son.

Your experience sounds like a typical consumer nightmare.
What ever happened to customer service? I guess it went out
when the corporations took control of our country. I too
belong to a local community bank. They are gems to say the least.
Best wishes for a new and better year.
One love........

[undergroundpanther]

7. Holy shit the irony

I was discussing with another DUer about the weird coincidences around time concerning certain types of movies availability ,unavailability and release dates and such. I just finished answering the PM Than this gets posted.
Talk about weird coincidences.

[Grinchie]

9. Go Ahead Punks, Make My Day

If I want to wacth Spongebob, I'll order a DVD on Netflix.

Viacom can go suck an egg

[Sydnie]

10. You do realize that DVD or on cable

It's still a Viacom product, right? :sarcasm:

[rooboy]

11. lol... the "very low double-digit range"....

shit, why not just go for an increase in the 'lowest possible triple digit range'??

[and-justice-for-all]

13. Why do they HATE square pants!!!? nt

[HughBeaumont]

15. Wow . . . looks like the Dead Kennedys WERE prophetic in more ways than one . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDcfPZOBiow

[rucognizant]

26. I thought you meant

the Political family!
eeeuuu, who are those creeps?

[HughBeaumont]

27. Uh, only one of the most influential bands of the past 25 years?

And, judging by lead singer Jello Biafra's recent "Letter to Barack Obama", on the correct side of most issues facing us today . . .

[The Doctor.]

30. Like most punk bands; social philosophers...

with anger management issues.

[sendero]

49. Never cared for the music...

... but loved the ideas, each and every one!

America is looking straight into the eye of a holiday in cambodia.

[antimatter98]

16. Who cares. We have more important issues to fix. n/t

[liberal N proud]

17. Time Warner is always fucking it's customers this way

But we will continue to get the religious channels regardless of what else happens.

[rucognizant]

24. Amen!

[Raineyb]

25. So true

I have antenna service. I used to get a some of the low tier channels. They changed the box and now I get CSPAN. But the religious channels always make their way through.

I only keep the cable to get the high speed internet anyway but this isn't the first nor will it be the last time the customers will get hosed because of a negotiation problem. And TWC will probably cave and pass the costs onto the rest of us and end up losing money on the deal because a huge rate hike during a recession is not a smart thing to do.

Regards

[Dulcinea]

35. And the shopping channels, too.

We have DirecTV (only way to get NFL Sunday Ticket), & we must have 10 shopping channels with basic service. No doubt we have lots of religious channels too, but I never watch them.

[Soylent Brice]

18. WARNING

if spongebob is not on my kids will, i repeat, will riot. full scale. blood, torture, looting, pillaging, apocalyptic orgy of violence.

they are 3 and 4.

but i SWEAR to you, FULL SCALE RIOT IS AT HAND.

K&R

[Dulcinea]

37. Big time.

My kids (5 & 7) will get medieval without SpongeBob, Fairly Oddparents, & Jimmy Neutron.

[Soylent Brice]

41. fairly odd parents for sure.

[1776Forever]

19. This is so relevent to all the "closings" going on right now - stores, stations, what's next?

My husband and I just were talking about how many of the old favorite haunts we had to shop at, visit, and go back to as a family tradition have closed now or are soon to close. Many programs like this and others will be gone too. The world is changing for sure and not always so much for the better!

[Robbien]

21. A thirty six percent increase? In a depression? That is extortion

Good for Time Warner for not caving to Viacom's crazy demands. Viacom will be in serious trouble if the cancellation goes through.

[robcon]

22. I'm pretty sure Time Warner doesn't want all their suppliers to get 25% increaases

If Time Warner accepts, e.g., a 25% imncrease, all the other networks will expect the same or more.

The market for advertising has taken a nosedive, and Viacom wants to offset that on the backs of the cable companies and their subscribers.

[NashVegas]

29. Sounds Like They're Trying to Make Up the Difference in Lost Advertising Revenue

Is my guess.

The internet is great and the internet is wonderful - and it's killing the business model that the pre-internet "creative class" used/uses to put food on their tables.

[MurrayDelph]

31. Time Warner is WHY we are on Dish

When we first moved in here ten years ago, we contacted Time Warner to install cable. The first guy didn't want to start installing until we had chosen packages (but he didn't have any brochures to show WHAT the packages contained, and their brochures never tell you what the real price is going to be
It took three more visits before someone was able to install the cables in our house that would actually get their signal. Most of the time.

You see, Time Warner was undergoing their "digital conversion," and to switch things over easily (for them), there were large periods during the day when their signal would just cut out. And we would phone and complain about the lack of signal when we were paying for 24/7 service. We received a lot of "Oh, they're working on it" excuses, as well as the usual trying to blame it on squirrels (so that they wouldn't be liable), and even got a "Well, what are you doing at home during the middle of the day?" But during that period, we got a lot of free cable, since if there was an outage, and you reported it, they had to refund that day's cable (One time a windstorm knocked out the cable for the neighborhood, and their recording told anyone who called that they were already aware of it, and you didn't need to hang on. We checked with neighbors the next month. Since they didn't stay on to go on record, they didn't get the refund).

And then there was the time they had the dispute with ABC/Disney, and just turned off the feed. They lost a lot of customers, and had to refund a lot of money to ALL of their customers that time, not just the ones who complained.

Once their conversion to digital was complete, the availability of signal was consistent, so since they could only adjust service rates once a year, they started messing with the definitions of Cable Plans. Suddenly things that used to be part of the current package were being moved up tiers; some requiring extra equipment to be rented (and they would tell you later how much the real cost would be), some were just part of a new definition (and they would tell you later how much the real cost would be).

And there were the frequent sales calls to get us to use them as the sole supplier of phone, internet, and television. Despite the fact that I was on the Do-Not-Call list, and that I had told them directly that I did not believe in single point of failure (If the cable goes out, how do I phone to let them know? And if the internet goes out, I can't use a regular modem, which means if my company needs me to fix something I would have to drive in), they would regularly call me. Calling after you have been told not to does not earn extra points for me (at least not GOOD points).

The final straw for us was when they moved Turner Classics up to a new tier. No advance warning, just one day it needed to be watched on a converter box.

So, we moved to DISH network, where I have always been able to see the real price. Have they been perfect? No. In fact, there was a time when I almost cancelled on them when the first DVR they sent me kept failing during critical times, and having to be rebooted. I had trouble convincing the management in India that just because it was back up now did not mean there was no problem, and waiting until the next time it failed before replacing it was not "providing" me "with excellent service." But generally they have been better than Time Warner, whom I would never go back to (despite having inherited stock in the company).

[otohara]

38. Dish - Best of The Bunch

Can't stand Comcast, Direct-TV has TIVO which IMO sucks. Dish DVR is much faster, easier to navigate and for those with HD - I think they have more channels. Never had Time/Warner - don't think they are in our area.

[KamaAina]

40. Most people can't get Dish or DirecTV

especially if they live in apartment or condo buildings. But even in a good old single-family home, the unobstructed view of the southern sky has to be just so.

I head somewhere that about 10% of U.S. homes make the cut. As for the other 90%, to paraphrase the immortal Gee Dubya Boosh, "Who cares what we watch?"

[2Design]

32. viacom greed and if TW give into it - it will continue - cable costs too much now

Viacom is just raking everyone over the coals - I say no and let them lose revenues - these shows can move to the internet and get away from viacom all together

[Neshanic]

33. Lets see, what do we have an overload of that suck money for nothing on the cable lineup if you want

or not.

Oh, Oh! Religious programming wall to wall that we subsidize if we like it or not. On any given Sunday morning how many religious broadcsaters/megachurches take over the air? 5? 10? 20?

We pay for that.

[AngryOldDem]

36. I am pissed about this.

Woke up, turned on the TV, and was met with the crawler that, as of midnight, my cable options would be reduced by roughly 50%. Time Warner justifies this by saying that the channels in question aren't doing well ratings wise, and therefore are not worth what Viacom's asking. Well, let the market bear that out. If I decide that they're not worth it, I'll tell TW. So will others.

Fine. If Time Warner doesn't pony up and Viacom takes its ball and goes home, then I want a 50% reduction in my already-ridiculously high cable bill. I'm not receiving the service I am paying for.

Time Warner had a pissing match with the NBC affliate here this fall, which blacked out that station for damned near a month until TW blinked. I'm fucking tired of being in the middle of these turf wars.

If this happens, I will most likely scale back my cable service to primitive tier. Local channels and CNN only.

[Liberalynn]

42. It would be one thing if they were going to add new replacement

entertainment channels to make up for the loss of Viacom. I'd still miss Comedy Central and falling asleep to Nick at Nite though. My Mom passed away, November 30, and listening to the old-sitcoms is just kind of comforting and distracting and helps me to fall asleep. It's just I wouldn't feel like I was being forced to pay the same for less service, if they replaced the ones they will be taking away.

And like all of you, I am not talking more religious stations, shopping channels, or sports channels either. I want more entertainment choices.

I wish they would go to alacarte TV and you could just pick and choose the stations in your lineup.

No offense to sports fans, but I don't ever watch EPSN or Madison Square etc, so why should I have to pay for them, and IMHO none of us should have to pay for those shopping channels.

[AngryOldDem]

52. That suggestion of yours makes the most sense yet.

When I got my cable service they were running a special where I got TV, phone, and Internet as a certain price, which included a tier of cable that I probably would not have subscribed to at the normal price. This includes channels that I don't watch, excpet maybe rarely. But there are other channels -- such as the Game Show Network, that I would love to have, but can't justify paying extra for.

Give subscribers a list of channels from which to choose and have them design their own packages.

Makes just too much sense to me.

[Alexander]

39. Anyone else see that ticker on TV recently about this?

They showed some phone number you could call to protest this.

Then again, I only get basic cable, which I barely watch anyway.

Anything good on TV these days can be found on YouTube.

[tanyev]

43. Frak! We finally gave in and got cable last month.

Decided to go that route instead of new antenna and converter boxes because of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report.


Frak.

[Sultana]

44. WTF is this fuckery?

:crazy:

[DebbieCDC]

45. I'd prefer to go a la carte too

I have Direct TV, and while I have no problems with them, other than the cost (even without premiums like HBO, etc.) I'd sure rather pay only for channels that I WANT to watch and not 10,000 religious broadcasts, ESPN/sports channels up the wazoo, more shopping than I could possibly watch in a lifetime, etc. I'd much rather pick & choose (A&E, History Channel, Discovery Network, Biography Channel, TCM, etc.)

[The Doctor.]

48. Looks like neither of them wanted to feel the pinch;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123078888079546751.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

NEW YORK -- Time Warner Cable Inc. Thursday said it reached an agreement with Viacom Inc. on carriage fees shortly after midnight, averting the prospect of having its subscribers deprived of popular networks such as Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon.

Viacom had publicly threatened to pull its networks off Time Warner Cable's system on New Year's Eve in a bid to win higher payments from the cable giant in its negotiation over carriage fees.

But Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said about an hour after midnight that the companies had reached an "agreement in principle," and Viacom's cable networks wouldn't go dark for Time Warner Cable subscribers.

Alexander Dudley, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable, confirmed the agreement, though he declined to disclose any terms of the deal.

[Maeve]

50. Or, as the Columbus Dispatch put it--"Kids win: Dora and pals stay on tv"

My teen-aged daughters were much relieved--they are VH1 junkies.

[AngryOldDem]

53. I kind of had a feeling that TW-Viacom would blink.

You can't piss off 99.9% of your customers, after all. But, after going without a local station for nearly a month because of similar nuttiness, I admit I was holding my breath. I was much, much relieved to see MTV still blaring its shit at 12:01 a.m. Happy New Year, indeed.