The American Cable Association demanded that Viacom stop the crawl running during its programming that tells cable subscribers that they might lose networks such as Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon at midnight.
The crawl was being televised to all cable subscribers, but
Viacom is in a dispute only with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, which represent only 16 million of the nation’s 98 million cable subscribers.
“Viacom has shown reprehensible judgment today while engaging in what amounts to a national misinformation campaign against thousands of cable operators and millions of subscribers,” said Steve Friedman, American Cable Association chairman and chief operating officer of Wave Broadband.
“It is … beyond the norm and completely unacceptable that they would erroneously and imprudently alarm 82.9 million subscribers around the country that have nothing to do with that mess and are now concerned their service will soon be disrupted,” said Steve Polka, ACA president and CEO. “The crawl maliciously and unnecessarily interferes with our members’ ability to serve their customers and must be pulled.”
A Viacom spokesman said the crawls had already stopped running this afternoon, and it had not planned to air them this evening.
According to the ACA, the crawl says: “Alert! Alert! Alert! Attention Time Warner Cable and Bright House Network customers, starting tonight, you will lose 19 channels from your TV including MTV, VH1, Spike, Comedy Central, TV Land, Nickelodeon and Noggin. Don’t miss out on your favorite shows. You can stop this! Time Warner Cable customers call 1-800-762 3786 Bright House Networks customers call 1-866-309-3279 and demand they keep these channels! Must be at least 18 years old to call.”
Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tvweek/News/~3/499747483/cable_association_steps_into_v.php
Posted
Wed, Dec 31 2008 3:26 PM
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