Paramount-owned channels including CBS, Comedy Central and MTV are set to go dark on YouTube TV Thursday night if a contract renewal agreement is not reached, both companies say.
“The contract Paramount has with Google’s YouTube TV to carry CBS, Nickelodeon and 21 other networks is about to expire,” Paramount stated on a webpage devoted to the business disagreement. “YouTube TV is attempting to pressure Paramount to agree to unfavorable and one-sided terms.”
The dispute centers on what are known as carriage fees, which are the payments that paid TV providers like YouTube make to broadcasters for the right to carry the broadcaster’s programming. Conflicts between providers and broadcast players have become increasingly common in recent years, leading to regular channel and content blackouts. Carriage-fee fights can lead to frustrations for viewers, such as when a 2024 dispute between the Walt Disney Co. and DirecTV led to a blackout of several popular Disney-owned channels and streaming services, for millions of DirectTV customers.
“We’ve been working hard to reach a fair agreement with Paramount that allows us to keep their channels, including CBS and CBS Sports, on YouTube,” Alphabet’s YouTube stated in a programming update. If an agreement is not reached and the content is not available for “an extended period of time,” subscribers will get an $8 credit, YouTube stated.
YouTube TV also told customers that they can sign up for Paramount+ to continue watching CBS and related content. CBS News is owned by Paramount Global, which offers the streaming service Paramount+.
Neither Paramount nor Google immediately responded to requests for comment.
The video service has more than 8 million subscribers, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said last year.
The disagreement follows YouTube TV in January increasing the cost of its basic package by 10 bucks to $82.99 a month.
