Viacom's Carriage Renewal Talks With Dish Break Down
April 19 2016 - 2:30PM
Dow Jones News
Viacom Inc. said its discussions with satellite TV provider Dish
Network Corp. to renew carriage of its TV channels have broken
down, and its programming will likely go dark for Dish
customers.
The media company, owner of networks such as Nickelodeon, Comedy
Central, MTV and TV Land, accused Dish of making unreasonable
demands, despite its offer of a "best-in-class" deal on rates and
terms for carriage of its networks.
"We are extremely disappointed that DISH has not engaged in a
serious way to reach an agreement for Viacom's number one family of
cable networks," Viacom said in a statement. "DISH has made demands
that are designed to be impossible to meet in order to take our
negotiations public and likely force our programming off the
air."
The negotiations have been closely watched by Viacom investors,
who were worried when some small cable operators dropped Viacom
channels in 2014.
Viacom shares fell 7% on the news in early afternoon
trading.
Wall Street has been looking at the Dish talks as an important
measuring stick for Viacom to prove that its channels can continue
to receive wide distribution even as cord-cutting adds pressure to
the television industry.
Dish is known for bruising carriage negotiations with media
companies and has had standoffs with other big conglomerates
including Time Warner Inc., 21st Century Fox and Comcast Corp.'s
NBCUniversal, as well as various TV station-owners.
A Dish spokesman had no immediate comment.
Viacom said it had begun running a crawl on its channels for
Dish customers informing them of the contentious state of
negotiations.
Write to Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 19, 2016 14:15 ET (18:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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