From the NY Times:
Negotiations over a new contract between the EchoStar Communications Corporation and Viacom Inc. have failed to produce a new agreement, and early today EchoStar stopped broadcasting the signals of Viacom-owned CBS television stations, including those in New York and Los Angeles.The dispute, reminiscent of a short battle between the Walt Disney Company and Time Warner Inc. a few years ago, once again leaves consumers caught between companies that provide entertainment content and those that distribute it.
In addition to dropping the CBS signals, Echostar, which at the end of the third quarter had 9.1 million subscribers, will stop showing Viacom's cable networks, including MTV and Nickelodeon.
The DishNetwork site seems to be down at the moment, but earlier they had a page up that listed the affected CBS stations. Atlanta wasn't on the list, so I'm guessing that we'll still have CBS, but won't have Comedy Central, MTV, etc. Both companies are appealing to customers (that would be me) to call the other company and complain about the situation. Frankly, in our household we have our hands full protesting the Bush administration's actions, so I don't see us getting involved in this little pissing match. If anyone's going to get a piece of my mind, it's going to be the FCC/FTC for letting these media companies get so freakin' huge that one corporation (Viacom) has enough control to wreak this kind of havoc.
Posted by Jason at March 9, 2004 04:03 PM