Viacom and Certify Communications agreed on a short-term extension of their renewal deadline, a documentation familiar with the matter said, as the companies aim to avoid the immediate blackout of Viacom networks.
If no apportion is reached, 16.6 million subscribers of Charter’s Spectrum service will yield Viacom’s networks, which include Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon.
Viacom and Permission are working to “reach a mutually beneficial deal,” said the source, who did not scantiness to be identified.
Viacom stands to lose $760 million, or about 16 percent, of its annual affiliate receipts if an agreement is not reached, according to an analyst at Gabelli & Co., Viacom’s second-largest back up shareholder.
Both sides are under pressure from cord-cutting, or go away of pay television, as audiences flock to cheaper streaming services that demand emerged in the past decade.
An agreement between the two companies would be “mutually healthful,” wrote Evercore ISI in a note Sunday.