APPARENT VICTORY FOR DIRECTV IN ITS DISPUTE WITH VIACOM

It appeared today (Friday) that the week-long carriage dispute between Viacom and DirecTV has ended in a victory for the latter. Terms of the new deal were not disclosed, but DirecTV exec Derek Chang, who has acted as spokesman for the home-satellite company, issued a statement that chastised Viacom for removing its channels “to try to gain leverage” in the dispute and said that the outcome “has accomplished one key thing: it serves notice to all media companies that bullying TV providers and their customers with blackouts won’t get them a better deal.” Viacom, which had seen the ratings for most of its channels drop precipitously in recent months and was no doubt seeing them drop further during the blackout after losing millions of viewers, released a terse statement saying that it was “extremely pleased to bring its programming back to DirecTV subscribers.”