Austin DirecTV Customers May Lose Viacom Channels

Certain DirecTV channels may go off the air at midnight as the company’s contract with Viacom expires.

The current state of negotiations between the companies indicates those channels — which include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV — will go black for DirecTV subscribers at that time.

In a blog post, Viacom says that talks "have reached an impasse" and that it deserves higher fees, while DirecTV says the company is looking for an increase of more than 30 percent.

Viacom says that DirecTV is offering to pay less than “any other distributor in the industry.”

DirecTV asserted in an online statement that it does not plan to pull the channels and that they will not go off the air “unless Viacom chooses to take them away.”

DirecTV has over 20 million subscribers and carries 17 unique Viacom channels, as well as nine HD versions.