The Walking Dead Cancelled?!?

If you're one of the millions of fans glued to their television screens every Sunday night for their weekly dose of the Undead, This Walking Dead News might worry you a little.

Unknown to many viewers of the television's number 1 prime time series, DirecTV and AMC are involved in legal war regarding the renewal of their contract. According to Movie Pilot, the old deal between the two partners is set to expire during the half season break of Walking Dead Season 5.

If they don't reach an agreement any time soon or if the deal is not renewed, well, you might want to say an early goodbye to Rick Grimes and his team of Walker-killers because DirecTV isn't showing the second half on AMC.

This public dispute revolves around subscription fees. "As a subscription network, AMC depends on these for the main bulk of their income," reports Movie Pilot. No party has explicitly stated the reason behind the prevention of renewal, but what seems likely to be happening is that AMC is demanding DirecTV increase subscription fees in exchange for more content from AMC.

Of course, with the success of The Walking Dead, regularly bringing over millions of viewers, they're using the show now as a bargaining chip. They will not hesitate to use The Walking Dead as leverage in this deal. But, on the other hand, they also would not want to lose a very important source of revenue and mass viewers, if DirecTV is forced to blackout AMC, since it's the second-biggest provider after ComCast.

The two warring parties have released statements trying to lure fans into their sides. In a statement release by AMC, they said, "DirecTV's agreement to carry AMC expires midway through the current season of The Walking Dead. DirecTV has not engaged in meaningful negotiations with us, which leaves us to doubt whether a timely renewal is possible."

Undeterred, DirecTV presented one of their own. "DirecTV customers will not miss any of this year's new season of The Walking Dead or any other shows. AMC is contractually obligated to provide all of its programming for several more months and we intend to renew our AMC partnership at a price that's fair to our customers."

This is not the first time blackouts have happened and deals have fallen through before. Just recently, subscribers to Dish Network Corporation lost CNN and Cartoon Network, both from Time Warner, after the same incident occurred.

          

~crossmap.com