If you’ve been watching any of the Viacom owned stations in the last few days you’ve no doubt seen the black bar scrolling across the bottom of the screen publicizing the feud between Viacom and Time Warner Cable.

The companies were squabbling over pennies per subscriber, and their heated stand-off was only going to hurt Time Warner customers in the end.

As luck would have it, somebody blinked – and the two have reached a deal. So Time Warner subscribers can now get “South Park”, “The Daily Show”, “Chocolate News”, and “Spongebob” without having to go through the hassle of calling one of half a dozen other options that most people have.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it was Time Warner who blinked – but that’s just a guess.

Comedy Central is launching in New Zealand by MTV Networks in conjunction with Sky Television in 2009. This will mark the first time the network has aired outside the US and Europe.

The channel will be available in more than 50% of the households in New Zealand starting April 1st. Which is kind of appropriate…unless, of course, this is a really elaborate “April Fool’s Day” on an entire country.

If so – man, that’s a great idea.

(201e01) Chocolate News

Chocolate News: we don’t just filter the news, we filter it with menthol.

I’ve always liked David Alan Grier. He was one of my favorite performers on “In Living Color”, and I think movies like “Blankman” and “Jumanji” were better for having him in them (even if they were terrible). So I was excited to see that he was coming back to television with a new show “Chocolate News”.

Now, at first glance, you could compare the show to “Chappell’s Show” – and that would be a fair comparison. However, you could also compare “Chappell’s Show” to “In Living Color” – and that would be a fair comparison too – so it’s a wash in my book.

Tonight we saw sketches featuring Mia Angelou, a look at Chocolate News’ recently deceased white reporter, a rapper named Fatman doing PSAs, an “N-word” peace treaty, and a quick look at the first black man to run for president…in 1932.

Of all these sketches the only one I didn’t find laugh-out-loud funny in at least one spot was teh Mia Angelou bit. It just didn’t grab me, but the Fatman stuff was insanely funny, and every other element of the show had me laughing…especially the opening monologue.

I seriously hope Comedy Central has a hit on their hands here because “D.A.G.” is at his absolute best in this pilot, and if this show can maintain this level of funny, we’ll be seeing it on basic cable for the rest of our lives (largely in re-runs…but you get the idea)Cho.

Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black have a new pilot at Comedy Central titled “Michael and Michael Have Issues”. The team previously worked on “The State” as well as “Stella” and they pop up all over the place…including VH1 quite a bit.

The Hollywood Reporter describes the series like so…”a half-hour project with segments addressing issues that the two men have with themselves, each other and the world at large.”

That sounds…broad.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with.