Customers will be happy to hear that DirecTV and Viacom announced on Friday that they have reached a deal that will allow certain programming to return to the airwaves.
Since July 10 several channels had been blacked out for 20 million DirecTV customers. Among these channels were Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, Spike and VH1.
The dispute originally resulted from Viacom seeking a 30% boost on top of its prior deal, which would cause DirecTV to charge their customers more money.
“It’s unfortunate that Viacom took the channels away from customers to try to gain leverage, but in the end, it’s clear our customers recognized that tactic for what it was,” said Dereck Chang, executive vice president of DirecTV.
DirecTV will now pay about $600 million in the first year of a seven-year deal to carry Viacom channels on satellite TV lineups, which is about a 20 percent increase.
DirecTV customers will have more access to Viacom-owned programs via the Internet under the new deal. Programs will be available to DirecTV subscribers through tablets, smartphones and PCs, while free access to non-DirecTV subscribers will be become more restricted.
The new deal continues a trend of positive relationships between distributors and channel owners that strengthens their position against online competitors.
DirecTV is the second-largest service provider and Viacom owns eight of the top 30 networks.
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