The Viacom/DirecTV Negotiations Hit A Snag – Details

According to a rep from Viacom, the ongoing dispute with DirecTV won’t be ending anytime soon. The Viacom rep told Dateline that the two sides only spend about ten minutes a day talking about the issues holding up the deal. The issues include how much of an increase DirecTV is willing to pay and the length of a contract renewal.

DirecTV said that Tuesday night it accepted all the “material terms” that Viacom wanted for its seventeen channels but that Viacom demanded they carry EPIX “at an additional cost of more than half a billion dollars.” DirecTV said, “We know our customers don’t want to pay such an extreme price for an extra channel, they simply want the ones they had returned to them.” Viacom said that is inaccurate, saying, “We’ve offered packages without EPIX, packages with EPIX, and packages with significant incentives to take EPIX.”

Needless to say, without a very sudden and drastic change, TNA iMPACT! will not be available for DirecTV subscribers this week. This will obviously affect the rating once again.