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Viacom Channels Go Dark on DirecTV

Last night at midnight, 20 million DirecTV subscribers lost 17 different Viacom channels. The channels lost include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, and more.

DirecTV and Viacom conflict of carriage fees continues. DirecTV says Viacom wants a 30 percent increase in fees, which comes out to an additional $1 billion. Viacom’s Vice President for Corporate Communications Mark Jafar wrote on his company’s blog that the increase amounts to “a couple pennies per day, per subscriber”, that DirecTV has been paying “the same bargain rate” for Viacom programming for 7 years, and that Viacom “accounts for 20% of all viewing on DirecTV.”

USA Today reports that DirecTV subscribers who tune into Viacom channels will now see a “mix” channel of programming from other networks, such as Bravo, FX, and TBS. DirecTV is also making eight Encore movie channels, which are usually part of premium packages, available for free to all of its customers until July 31.

For more on DirecTV’s side of the argument, check out directvpromise. More on Viacom’s view can be found on the company’s blog and whendirecttvdrops.