1D special TONIGHT at 8/7c! AND we're posting it on http://Nick.com for a week starting at 9/8c especially for u DirecTV Directioners!North American Nickelodeon viewers affected by Viacom's dispute with DirecTV are encouraged to telephone DirecTV on 800-531-5000 and demand "I Want My Nick TV!"
Also, from Examiner.com:
Viacom to air One Direction TV special online in response to DirecTV blackout
Fans of the British boy band One Direction who also happen to be subscribers of DirecTV were worried about seeing Saturday night’s new TV special called “One Direction: A Year in the Making.” That's because Nickelodeon is now in blackout mode on DirecTV. Plus, Viacom no longer airs new episodes of its popular shows online in response to the DirecTV battle.
However, Viacom posted on the Nickelodeon Twitter page at 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, July 13...Directioners! Right after the @onedirection special airs Sat. at 8/7c on Nick we’re making it available for a week on Nick.com.This means that young fans who use DirecTV as their cable provider can now go online at Nick.com at 8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 14 to watch a rebroadcast of the One Direction TV special. This move is a very welcome one in a bitter battle between two media giants.
One Direction is the teen group that made their first TV appearance on the UK version of “The X Factor.” Their debut album titled “Up All Night” hit the number one position in 15 different countries around the world. Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are now global sensations and their level of fame is rivaling that of Justin Bieber. One Direction was the first UK band to debut at No. 1 in the United States with a debut album and it is nominated for three Teen Choice Awards. The group currently has over seven million Facebook and five million Twitter followers. Their “What Makes You Beautiful” video has garnered more than 100 million views on YouTube.
The sky is the limit for One Direction and now their DirecTV fans have something to sing about. Even though Nickelodeon is blacked out on DirecTV, Nick.com will replay the “One Direction: A Year in the Making” TV special online. Was this a good move by Viacom? Only time will tell if a settlement can be reached in the DirecTV versus Viacom battle.
In the meantime, 20 million DirecTV customers still can’t view 26 of their favorite channels including MTV, MTV2, Comedy Central, TV Land, CMT, BET, Centric and VH1. The blackout is now three days old and is the direct result of an on-going feud between DirecTV and Viacom over carriage fees. The existing contract expired last Sunday and Viacom is demanding 30% higher fees from DirecTV to retransmit content from their stations. DirecTV fired back by refusing to pay the increase and posted the following message on its Facebook page on Thursday [12th July 2012] night...No Drama, Let’s Deal: Viacom can’t get anyone to believe they’re not the ones responsible for cutting off DIRECTV customers’ channels Tuesday night, and then less than 12 hours later, denying everyone in America from getting their top hits for free online. Rather than listen, Viacom’s turning up the volume on a planned radio blitz across top US cities to interrupt everyone’s weekend. Moms and dads... are already fed up with Viacom using SpongeBob and Dora to frighten their children. Viacom’s full-page newspaper ads featuring Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert talking about ‘people’s freedom’ fell completely flat when Viacom themselves shut down both TV and Internet access to those very same shows. Consumer protection and free speech advocate Public Knowledge decried their “overreaction as unprecedented.”Viacom posted this message on its blog on Wednesday concerning the dropped channels:
Rather than ramp up the propaganda in newspaper ads and radio spots, all we want is to get the channels back on air without an unfair increase to customer bills. We want to enable our customers to enjoy programming, not deny it, so we’ve added 8 new Encore services and opened up PBS Sprout, The Hub, TV One, Fuse and other programming to hopefully help offset some of the inconvenience this has caused.
Viacom just needs to grow up and stop with the misleading propaganda, no one is buying it, and focus their efforts at the negotiating table.The last time we spoke with DirecTV was at 11:00 a.m. yesterday morning and there were no new ideas offered for resolution. In fact, the last proposal DirecTV had made was lower than anyone else pays in the industry, and a deal we said we would not do out of fairness to other distributors. It is essentially the same proposal they had been talking about for three weeks, and one we continually said we would not do. DirecTV also refused to engage with us on any issues related to the deal beyond the rate increase. We are ready to talk at any time.After a call to customer service tonight, this DirecTV customer was given a $10 discount for three months for the inconvenience of the Viacom blackout. To ramp up its programming options during the Viacom blackout, DirecTV has added Disney Junior, PBS Sprout, The Hub, TV One, Fuse and eight new Encore channels to its mix.
