It's gotten so bad, Dora the Explorer is crying.

The full-page advertisement of the bilingual animated character sobbing is the latest move in the feud between Time Warner Cable Inc. and Viacom Inc. that has a deadline of midnight tonight.

Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by then.

About 13 million customers could be affected. The nation's second-largest cable operator primarily serves customers in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.

"It is an unusual step for it to go this far," said Melissa Buscher, spokeswoman for Time Warner. "If indeed the midnight hour approaches and we still don't have an agreement, these stations will go black."

Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22 percent and 36 percent per channel, an amount that could increase customers' cable bills.

Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said the requested increase was in the very low double-digit percentage range.
"The issue is that they have asked for an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees and their network ratings are sagging," he said. "Basically we're trying to hold the line for our customer."

Viacom said the increases would cost an extra 23 cents a month per subscriber - which works out to $35.9 million more in total. The company later asked for a $39 million increase, which would amount to a $2.75 increase per year for customers.

McAndrew said that Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5 percent of the Time Warner cable bill.

"We make this request because Time Warner Cable has so greatly undervalued our channels for so long," McAndrew said. "Ultimately, however, if Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV and the rest of our programming is discontinued - over less than a penny per day - we believe viewers will see this behavior by their cable company as outrageous."

Debbie Dover, a Time Warner customer, said she doesn't agree.

"I don't think the price that they're asking people to pay for these channels is justified," she said. "I think sometimes companies can become pretty greedy when it comes to charging a lot more than people can afford and I think TV should be affordable."

In addition to the Dora the Explorer advertisement, Viacom ran a crawl across its channels, urging customers to call Time Warner and demand that they keep them.

Time Warner officials said programming is the company's No. 1 expense.

"That's why we're trying really hard to come up with an agreement that's fair for our company and fair for our customers," said Buscher, the Time Warner spokeswoman.

Viacom accused Time Warner Cable of not negotiating.

"It is our sincere hope that they will come to the table and negotiate a deal," said McAndrew.

Part of the disagreement is that most of the popular shows are rerun on Web sites where Viacom collects advertising revenue that it does not share with Time Warner.

Viacom has staked much of its revenue-growth prospects on its ability to extract higher carriage rates out of its cable and satellite affiliates despite an ad slowdown and weak ratings.

In the third quarter, media network revenue, which accounts for about two-thirds of the total, grew 6 percent to $2.1 billion, despite global ad revenue falling 2 percent, largely because of double-digit percentage growth in affiliate fees and the success of its "Rock Band" video game.

Viacom shares rose 69 cents, or 3.7 percent, to close at $19.26 on Tuesday, while Time Warner Cable shares added $1.56, or 7.7 percent, to $21.76.

The channels that would be affected are: Comedy Central, CMT: Pure Country, Logo, Palladia, MTV, MTV 2, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, MTV Tr3s, Nickelodeon, Noggin, Nick 2, Nicktoons, Spike, The N, TV Land, VH1, VH1 Classic, and VH1 Soul.

For some, no matter how this turns out, the entire process is a lose-lose situation.

"We're at their mercy cause we're going to pay," Rick Crank, a Time Warner customer, said. "Regardless, we're going to end up paying for it. I think we're being held hostage big time."