Wrestling fans with DirecTV might be out of luck this Thursday night if they’re expecting to watch Imact Wrestling on Spike TV.
DirecTV and Viacom (parent company of Spike TV, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, VH1, CMT and others) have been unable to reach an agreement regarding carriage fees, so the channels have been pulled from the cable service. The previous contract expired over the weekend.
DirecTV EVP Derek Chang made the following statement on the matter:
“We have absolutely no problem compensating Viacom fairly, but they have now knowingly put our customers in the unreasonable position of either accepting their extravagant financial demands or losing some of their favorite TV shows.”
“We feel our customers should not have to pay more for these networks than the customers of any other TV provider. We reiterated this to Viacom today and have not heard back from them.”
“DirecTV added that Viacom demanded the channels get taken down and said, “We asked Viacom to allow us to keep the channels up while we continue to negotiate, but they refused. We’re working diligently on a new agreement to keep making these channels available at a fair price to our customers.”
We’ll post an update when this situation changes and if DirecTV & Viacom are able to come to terms on a new agreement.
