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Business & Tech

Poll: Will You Stick With DirecTV Without MTV, Comedy Central?

Because of a contract dispute, millions of satellite customers lost a number of Viacom channels Tuesday night, including MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and County Music Television.

A contract dispute between DirecTV and Viacom left millions of satellite customers — including those in Fountain Valley — without popular cable channels, such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, BET and Comedy Central.

The Viacom channels went dark for DirecTV customers at midnight tuesday.

A statement on the DirecTV's website reads:

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"Nobody should lose hits like 'SpongeBob SquarePants,' 'Dora the Explorer,' 'The Daily Show,' 'The Colbert Report,' 'South Park' and 'Jersey Shore.'  On the one hand, nearly all of those shows are deep into repeats, and you’re not likely to see anything new for as long as several months.

"But if you really want the repeats (and many might), it is easy to go to Viacom’s websites to watch them – for free – and we can even help you find your favorite shows if you visit DirectvPromise.com/other-ways-to-watch/.

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"This is also a major reason we don’t think you should pay $1 billion more. It isn’t fair for you to pay that much more to get channels you already receive or TV shows Viacom gives away to everyone else for free."

Responding to DirecTV statements, Viacom wrote on Blog.Viacom

"DirecTV is throwing around some big numbers that are misleading. Here’s the truth: Viacom is asking DirecTV for an increase of a couple of pennies per day per subscriber.

"That’s far less than DirecTV pays other programmers with fewer viewers than Viacom. Viacom has always been open to negotiating and hopes to get a deal done."

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