Try telling your kids that SpongeBob isn't going to be on anymore. Tell them Dora went to explor-a on satellite and that you have cable. I doubt they will understand that in these tough economic times that television executives are still trying to grind double digit increases for the fees that a network gets for their channels. You have to give it to Viacom and their 17 channels as they have built a well-respected group of channels that range from MTV to Comedy Central and beyond. People want them thus broadcasters like Time Warner need to have the channels.

Reports said Viacom wanted a 12 percent increase in fees and Time Warner was choking on the number. Consumers were calling in to complain to Time Warner as the channels were about to be potentially pulled from the lineup. In the end, the two sides have announced that they have worked out a deal and will wrap up details in the coming days. There will be no disruption to anyone's channels who subscribes to Time Warner Cable.

Consumers have a choice in terms of how they get their television fed into their homes specifically with the rise of the increasingly HD-savvy satellite providers such as Dish Network and DirecTV however Time Warner also packs high speed Internet for many of their users thus making the move a little more difficult for users to move away from their trusty cable company.

In the end, both Viacom and Time Warner knew that finding the middle protects their content and value to consumers as a deep recession isn't a good time to start taking away value from consumers. They might just learn how to live without cable or the channels that come on such a service.

Source: TimeWarner.com, HuffingtonPost.com