Viacom May Pull Shows From Time Warner

By Ryan Nakashima

LOS ANGELES -- "SpongeBob SquarePants" may be getting squeezed off of Time Warner Cable.

Media giant Viacom (VIA) said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark on Time Warner Cable (twx) at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by then.

The impasse over carriage fee hikes would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off to 13 million subscribers, said spokesman Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable. The nation's second-largest cable operator primarily serves customers in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.

Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22% and 36% per channel, an amount that could increase customers' cable bills, Dudley said. Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said the requested increase was in the very low double-digit%age range.

"The issue is that they have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging," he said. "Basically we're trying to hold the line for our customer."

Viacom said the increases would cost an extra 23 cents a month per subscriber -- which works out to $35.9 million more in total. It said that Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5% of the Time Warner cable bill.

"We make this request because Time Warner Cable has so greatly undervalued our channels for so long," it said.