Jonathan Berr at CBS News reports that a consortium of cable operators, including Mid-Hudson Cable locally, may see blank screens from Viacom channels April 1 unless they can reach an agreement over fees. Friday, Mid-Hudson began running announcements over Viacom programming, and has a notice posted on its website about the possible interruption. "Viacom, the parent company for MTV, Comedy Central, TV Land, Nickelodeon, CMT, and VH1, along with several others channels, is threatening to blackout these channels April 1 unless we agree to an increased fee of almost $5 per subscriber. Mid-Hudson finds this unacceptable and is working to negotiate a more reasonable increase," the notice says. See the story at CBS News. (Mid-Hudson Cable is a WGXC underwriter.)