MTA, GCI reach deal with Viacom

MAT-SU — Valley television viewers were spared an April Fool’s Day blackout on many popular channels when a coalition of independent cable operators reached a deal with Viacom.

The cable companies, including MTA and GCI, enlisted the help of the National Cable Television Cooperative to negotiate a new contract with Viacom, which owns the rights to 26 channels, including various MTV offerings, VH-1, Spike, BET, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon channels.

Those channels were set to go dark April 1 for 130,000 Alaska subscribers if a new deal couldn’t be hammered out.

The contract had been set to expire at 11:59 p.m., March 31 (EDT), but negotiations continued with a series of one-hour extensions issued until a deal was reached Tuesday. During those extensions, the companies were allowed to continue to air the Viacom channels.

Carolyn Hanson, MTA’s director of marketing and sales, said Viacom had initially wanted the independent cable providers to take its entire package of channels and pay an increase that was about 40 times the rate of inflation.

That the deal could be reached without having to pull those channels was a good scenario for customers, Hanson said.

“Obviously, we’re glad our customers got to keep the content flowing on their TVs,” she said. “The rate increases are getting increasingly difficult.”

The new deal with Viacom and the independent cable companies is for five years, Hanson said.