Firm is tangled in cable battle
Max Abrams had no idea that he was being dragged into a multimillion-dollar corporate war between two media giants when he rolled into the Sherman Oaks headquarters of his father’s company, Sober Vacations International, on Wednesday morning.
But the first clue that he was caught in the middle of something ugly came in voicemails left overnight on the company’s phone answering system.
“This one person was mumbling, ‘Don’t take my Nickelodeon away, you dummies,’ ” Abrams said in an interview.
At first he was bewildered, but then Abrams figured out what was happening as he fielded more calls from agitated Time Warner Cable subscribers. All of the callers were trying to protest the possible cancellation of their favorite channel, Nickelodeon.
Viacom Inc. was threatening to yank 19 of its channels, including Nickelodeon, MTV, VH-1 and Comedy Central from Time Warner Cable Inc. systems if the two sides failed to reach an agreement by midnight Wednesday.
Abrams said Sober Vacations, which organizes holidays for recovering alcoholics, received hundreds of calls from people who apparently misdialed while trying to reach Time Warner Cable. Viacom had placed ads in newspapers and inserted an on-screen crawler on its cable channels, including Nickelodeon, to encourage viewers to complain to Time Warner Cable.
“There was one father who was particularly upset,” Abrams said. “He said, ‘I have kids. . . . You can’t take Nickelodeon away.’ ”
The number for Time Warner Cable that Viacom scrolled on viewers’ screens was 1-800-762-3786, a Viacom spokeswoman said. The number for Sober Vacations is similar: 1-800-762-3738.
Abrams said one young boy called Sober Vacations International, pleading: “What about SpongeBob?”
Not everyone misdialed, according to Time Warner Cable. Thousands of callers reached the cable operator to lodge their complaints and lobby for the continuation of Nickelodeon and other Viacom channels.
“Yes, we’ve been inundated,” said Darryl Ryan, Time Warner Cable spokesman in Los Angeles.
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