Advanced Television

Cablevision takes on Viacom

August 11, 2014

By Chris Forrester

Cablevision, the 8th-largest cable TV company in the USA, is again locked into a bitter dispute with Viacom in the latest of a long line of carriage disputes the company has had with content providers.

In documents released in a court filing on August 8th, Viacom is claiming that 2012 negotiations between the two parties to settle a carriage dispute for programming were a “complete sham” and it alleges that Cablevision engaged in deliberate fraud in statements to the court.

The agreement reached back in 2012 was based on a secret plan, alleges Viacom, and the content giant is now asking for the court to set aside the 2012 agreement. The crux of the dispute is that Cablevision wants only the best-performing of Viacom’s networks, while Viacom wants to sell all of its channels into the Cablevision markets. Viacom is now asking that all of its channels be pulled from Cablevision.

Cablevision, in a statement released on August 8th, said: “This baseless filing is a transparent attempt by Viacom to delay and distract attention from Cablevision’s valid antitrust claim against Viacom for illegal channel tying.  Viacom’s practice of tying of its popular networks to carriage of its lesser-watched networks is anti-consumer and wrong, and we look forward to further pressing our case at the next stage of the proceeding.”

Categories: Articles, Cable, Pay TV, Policy, Regulation