Parents in Park Slope and especially those who subscribe to Park Slope Parents are upset that Noggin, the groovy kid’s cable channel popular with Park Slope toddlers was not being provided on Time Warner Cable in the last few days. Seems that there’s a very public conflict going on between Viacom (which provides the programming) and Time Warner Cable. Here one member of Park Slope Parents explains the situation.

So sorry everyone is missing Noggin and Dora!

The crux of the matter is not a local one, and phone calls to Time Warner Cable
won’t do a whole lot, I’m afraid. Getting the message to the central
bodies of these companies may do more, but voting with your dollars
will do even more than that.

Viacom is a huge company that essentially provides programming and
channels to the huge company that delivers them to your house, Time
Warner Cable. Viacom thinks they’ve been underpaid for their
programming for some time and are demanding an increase in what TWC
pays them, despite the current horrific economic conditions. TWC has
said no, so Viacom stopped providing the channels. As of this morning,
Nickelodeon, MTV, and Comedy Central are on track to return ASAP.

Expect the “blackout” to persist for quite a while for some channels-
until TWC loses too many customers or some agreement is reached.

I am uncertain but strongly suspect that all other providers still
have the Viacom channels (DirectTV, RCN, Optimum, etc). As of this
morning, we definitely do and are a non-TWC family.