DirecTV & Viacom go to war

New York - Viacom on Wednesday shut off access to full-length episodes on its own websites such as MTV.com and ComedyCentral.com to all visitors, even those who have no stake in the dispute. The move was apparently in response to DirecTV telling its 20 million U.S. subscribers where on the Internet they could find programs they could no longer watch on TV.

Viacom's sites are now taken over by a video ad that informs visitors about the dispute and prompts people to call DirecTV to complain. Some areas of the websites that once offered full episodes now say "Full episodes are currently unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience."
 
Certain episodes of Viacom programming, such as two-week-old episodes of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" were available online at Hulu. Others, like "Jersey Shore," were blocked.
 
DirecTV Group Inc. stopped carrying channels owned by Viacom Inc. late Tuesday because of a contract dispute. They include MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1 and Comedy Central.
 
DirecTV says Viacom was asking for a 30 percent increase in rates. Viacom says its latest agreement was made seven years ago and that DirecTV is now paying less than its competitors. The two companies blamed each other for the shutdown.
 
Many DirecTV subscribers took to microblog site Twitter to vent. "Viacom" and "Tosh," which references the Comedy Central show "Tosh.0," were trending topics on Twitter.