Viacom Says Contract Talks With DirecTV Have Reached ‘Impasse’

Viacom Inc., owner of MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, said program-fee talks with DirecTV stalled, signaling a longer blackout for 20 million subscribers who lost the pay-TV networks nine days ago.

“We’ve reached an impasse,” Denise Denson, executive vice president of content distribution at New York-based Viacom, said yesterday in a phone interview. “They’re not negotiating productively. I don’t see any end to this blackout.”