According to a joint statement from Viacom and AT&T issued at 4:39 a.m. New York Time on Monday, the companies have reached an agreement for the continued carriage of Viacom's channels across multiple AT&T platforms and products.
"The deal also brings AT&T customers more choice an improved value for Viacom content," the companies said in a statement.
Viacom and AT&T will announce further details about the agreement "in the near future," according to the statement. They declined to offer an immediate comment beyond the statement.
Negotiations over fees that AT&T will pay Viacom to carry the media company’s channels including BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and the Paramount Network (formerly known as Spike) continued after the contract expired Friday at Midnight. Service to AT&T's 24 million Pay TV customers was not disrupted.
The deal marks a dramatic change from the recent contentious exchanges from Viacom and AT&T ahead of the contract’s expiration.
In a company memo distributed to the press last week, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish accused AT&T of “abusing its new market position by favoring its own content -- which significantly underperforms Viacom’s -- to stifle competition.”
Viacom started a public relations campaign aimed at AT&T's subscribers with some of the company’s biggest stars including Trevor Noah of The Daily Show.
AT&T shot back, accusing Viacom of overcharging for its programming, noting that the company’s channels have lost 40 percent of their audience over the past six years.
Both companies were eager to avert a service interruption.
The telecom giant needs as many distribution partners as it can get to pay down its more than $170 billion in debt stemming from its $67.1 billion acquisition of DirecTV in 2015 and last year’s $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner.
AT&T's Viacom deal may set a precedent for the carriage renewals with CBS and Walt Disney expected in the coming months, according to Variety.
A blackout of Viacom channels would have come at a tough time for AT&T's pay-TV businesses.
More than 1 million subscribers dropped DirecTV in 2018 thanks to the rise of cord-cutters and increased competition. Interest in DirecTV Now also is starting to wane. Meanwhile, the future of U-Verse remains unclear.
Disputes over fees between companies that create and distribute content are becoming increasingly testy.
Subscribers to DirecTV’s main rival DishNetwork haven’t had access to HBO and Spanish language network Univision for months after the satellite provider failed to come to term on new distribution agreements. As a result, nearly 1 million net customers dropped Dish last year.
HBO is part of AT&T’s WarnerMedia business it acquired last year in its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner. More people are expected to drop Dish when the new season of Game of Thrones starts on HBO in April.
(Updates post to add information that an agreement has been reached)
