Viacom and DirecTV Reach Deal

From WSJ:

Viacom Inc. and DirecTV settled a program-fee dispute early Friday morning, restoring Viacom channels like Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV to the satellite TV service’s 20 million subscribers after a nine day blackout.

Precise financial details of the new seven-year agreement weren’t disclosed. But people familiar with the situation said Viacom won an increase of more than 20% in the fees paid by DirecTV, which previously had totaled around $500 million annually, raising the amount to above $600 million.

That lifted the rate paid by DirecTV to near or in line with the prevailing market rate Viacom received from other distributors, analysts said. DirecTV had previously said that Viacom was asking for a 30% increase in fees, though Viacom said its existing agreement paid it below-market rates and it was just asking for a fair deal. In midmorning trading, Viacom shares were up three cents to $46.68 while DirecTV stock was down nine cents to $48.86.

Posted by on July 20th, 2012 at 12:32 pm


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