No eleventh hour deal between the two quarreling lovers, as usual the paying customers lose out.

It appears those negotiations between Viacom and DirecTV went nowhere. At midnight tonight, subscribers looking to get their South Park on will no longer be able to do so. Not only will they lose Comedy Central but a total of 26 channels from Viacom will be nothing but static past the stroke of midnight. MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Spike and more are all in the bucket of programming destined to go dark.

The reason for pulling the plug? Why money of course! DirecTV and Viacom are both accusing each other of being greedy pigs, wishing to slurp up more green than the other is willing to sacrifice. The satellite provider is claiming Viacom wants a billion bucks of “subscriber’s” money and is willing to keep the channels running even after the contract is up but Viacom won’t let them.

DIRECTV is not willingly removing MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Spike, or any other channels even though Viacom began telling viewers exactly that at approximately 11:24 p.m. EST last night. The truth is, only 5 minutes later, Viacom sent an express letter via courier to DIRECTV threatening legal action if DIRECTV did not comply with Viacom’s demand to turn off the channels. Viacom is forcing us to take down the channels, while publicly claiming they are against it. -DirecTV

Viacom is accusing DirecTV of falsely inflating the numbers being asked by the content owner to keep distributing the shows. Viacom has also gone on to say they’ve given the satellite company and extension past the original contract’s end of June 30th.

 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. -Viacom

Either way you look at it, people are going to be paying for less. Either the channels don’t stay and keep paying current rates or they do stay and DirecTV ends up charging more to cover the increase. It’s a lose-lose for the consumer in my opinion. Any geeks on DirecTV? How does this affect you? Sound off in the comments after the break!

Related articles

• DirecTV-Viacom Dispute May Affect Access for 20 Million Customers(mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com)

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• DirecTV vs. Viacom squabble could see MTV, Comedy Central and 24 others go dark at midnight(engadget.com)

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