When general studies senior Kevin Williamson turned on his TV last week to watch The Daily Show, he was greeted by a black screen.
“I turned on my TV a couple days ago and couldn’t watch Comedy Central,” he said. “I ignored it and waited until the next day to watch it online. But when I went to the website, it said that full episodes were unavailable.”
Some students are being caught in the crossfire of a conflict between DirecTV and Viacom, resulting in the loss of channels such as MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
The blackout comes after the two companies failed to agree on a price to charge for Viacom’s content.
DirecTV failed to agree to Viacom’s rate increase, according to a news release.
As a result, 17 channels are unavailable to approximately 20 million subscribers.
Mark Jafar of Viacom is keeping up with the issue on the company’s blog.
“We are asking for an increase of less than 2 cents per subscriber per day for all 26 channels,” Jafar wrote. “DirecTV spends $10 billion on programming every year. Viacom’s networks account for 5 percent of that budget but represent 20 percent of all DirecTV’s viewership.”
Williamson isn’t the only student who is upset about the missing channels. History sophomore Lauren Williams is also disappointed about the loss of content.
“I’m actually not that upset about losing the TV channels,” Williams explained. “I am more upset that I can’t watch the TV shows online. I usually miss one or two of my favorite shows and go catch up on them online. Now I am missing all of them and catching up on none of them.”
This isn’t the first time DirecTV has taken down channels. During the past seven years, DirecTV has sparred with seven different programmers and blacked out channels five times.
Jafar did not offer a prediction on when the channels might return. He did say the channels will “most likely be restored once the companies come to an agreement.”
 
____ Contact Joshua Bergeron at [email protected]