• by Wayne Friedman , January 2, 2009

Viacom's advertising against Time Warner seemed to do its job--perhaps too well. The media giant issued an apology Friday for print ads attacking Time Warner Cable over the companies' carriage dispute--ads that ran a day after a tentative settlement had been reached.

The ads ran in a least five markets--New York, Cleveland, Orlando, Fla., Dallas and Raleigh, N.C.--in Jan. 2 editions of newspapers, including The New York Times, a day after Viacom and Time Warner had resolved their dispute, which kept some 19 Viacom channels on Time Warner systems, the second-biggest U.S. cable operator, with nearly 13.3 million basic cable subscribers.

Viacom put the blame on the New Year's Day holiday timing of the newspaper buys. Philippe Dauman, president/CEO of Viacom, said: "We apologize to Time Warner Cable and our viewers for any inconvenience or confusion these ads have caused. We look forward to continuing our positive and productive partnership with Time Warner Cable well into the future."

On Tuesday, Viacom threatened to pull all 19 MTV Networks channels at 12:01 a.m. on New Year's Day, when the previous carriage agreement with Time Warner Cable expired, unless the cable operator agreed to an increase of about 12% or 23 cents per subscriber per month. Shortly after New Year's Eve, on Thursday, Viacom and Time Warner Cable jointly announced that they had reached a tentative agreement on carriage.

Viacom complained that the monthly cable subscriber fees it gets from Time Warner were not compensatory to the actual viewership those channels deliver to Time Warner. Viacom says 20% of Time Warner's TV viewing time has its viewers watching Viacom networks, but that its fees only amount to less than 2.5% of what Time Warner generates from its average customer.