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Viacom, Cablevision Settle 2012 Antitrust Dispute

The companies said in a joint statement Friday they had resolved the legal fight and were “entering into mutually beneficial business arrangements”. Details of the agreement were not disclosed.

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Programmers – including Viacom, Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal – price their packages in ways that encourage distributors to carry all of their channels.

Bethpage, New York-based Cablevision continues to carry the full suite of Viacom channels, including the ones it complained about.

In February 2013, Cablevision filed an antitrust lawsuit against Viacom, alleging that the media giant has forced the cable provider to carry 14 little-watched Viacom networks in order to carry the more popular Viacom networks.

But Viacom countercharged that Cablevision’s negotiations for a 2012 carriage agreement were a “complete sham”, meant to extract favorable terms for the core channels and then get a court to void the rest.

Viacom is home to premier global media brands that create compelling television programs, motion pictures, short-form video, apps, games, consumer products, social media and other entertainment content for audiences in 180 countries.

Cablevision recently agreed to a $17.7 billion takeover bid by European telecom magnet Altice NV, which has pledged to trim $900 million from the MSO’s annual budget over the next five years.

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Indeed, its deal with Cablevision is Viacom’s second major step forward in the US market in recent weeks. The programmer also brought counterclaims and demanded that its contract with Cablevision be rescinded, opening the prospect that Cablevision could lose rights to MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central.

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