The Morning Fix: Viacom & DirecTV go to mattresses. What’s next for DC Comics?

After the coffee. Before checking the All-Star game ratings.

The Skinny: That was a snooze of an All-Star game but it was interesting to see that AMC had bought an ad attacking satellite broadcaster Dish for dropping its channel that ran during the game. Speaking of dropped channels, Wednesday’s headlines include the latest on the fight between Viacom and DirecTV, a look at DC Comics and a loss of confidence in TV news.

Daily Dose: Money is not the only thing keeping Viacom’s cable channels off of DirecTV (see below). The satellite broadcaster also is not pleased Viacom continues to put lots of content from its channels online for free. The cable industry is trying to encourage programmers to limit online access to content to people who already have a pay-TV subscription.

Dark days with no Dark Knight? With “The Dark Knight Rises” serving as director/producer Christopher Nolan’s farewell to Batman, Warner Bros. will need to find another super hero to makes its DC Comics brand a force. Warner Bros. had hoped Nolan wold produce “Justice League,” which is in the works for 2015 but he passed. A look at the hits and misses of DC Comics and what’s ahead from the Los Angeles Times and Variety.
No SpongeBob? Subscribers to DirecTV lost access to Viacom-owned cable channels including Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, VH1 and MTV late last night. The two sides are arguing over a new contract. DirecTV says Viacom is demanding an increase of $1 billion in subscription fees in its next deal. Viacom counters that DirecTV has been getting a bargain deal for the channels and its time to level the playing field. More on the feud from the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

Olympic overload. NBC is teaming up with Facebook to promote the Olympics. The social networking site will help promote the Games and in turn NBC will use information from the site to see what people are talking about with regards to the Summer Games. Details from the New York Times.

And that’s the way it is. A new Gallup survey revealed confidence in television news is at an all-time low. Only 21% of those surveyed by the polling firm said they had faith in TV news, down from almost 50% 20 years ago. Perhaps that’s because there is so little real news on television. More on the survey from Politico. Oh well, we can always watch “The Newsroom.”

Let the geekfest begin. While entertainment moguls gather in Sun Valley, Idaho, to discuss strategy at the annual Allen & Co. conference, the folks most important to their business, the fans, are storming San Diego for Comic-Con. USA Today on what’s happening at this year’s fan festival.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: Microsoft will try to do what Hollywood couldn’t, make a movie out of the video game Halo. USA Network tries to get a little more serious with the series “Political Animals.” Vevo wants more money from Google for its YouTube channel.

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