Viacocks

It's battle of the network overlords, and no matter who wins, viewers lose.

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 licensing fee deal is not agreed upon by then. Happy new year, bitches. Greed in 2009!

The impasse would mean 13 million subscribers would be cut off from those channels. Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22% and 36% per channel, an amount that will almost certainly increase customers' cable bills. "The issue is that they have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging," Time Warner talking heads said. "Basically we're trying to hold the line for our customer."

Viacom said the increases would cost an extra 23 cents a month per subscriber — which works out to $35.9 million more in total profit. Their claim is that Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5% of the Time Warner cable bill.

"We make this request because Time Warner Cable has so greatly undervalued our channels for so long. Ultimately, however, if Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV and the rest of our programming is discontinued — over less than a penny per day — we believe viewers will see this behavior by their cable company as outrageous," Viacom douches said, and then accused Time Warner Cable of not negotiating. The network operator also intends to tell viewers about the dispute in TV ads in 11 major markets.

Given the economy, I think it's pretty shitty for any company to try and leverage for more dollars in an eleventh hour ploy. And if Time Warner caves, you can bet other companies are going to ask for more money when their contracts expire. So whether you miss programming or lose pennies one the dollar, one of those companies is going to prevail at your expense.