Viacom’s nearly two dozen channels were still available to AT&T customers Saturday, hours after a midnight carriage deadline passed without a deal.

Viacom networks like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon were set to go dark at midnight to about 24 million DirecTV, DirecTV Now, Uverse and AT&T Watch customers if a carriage agreement could not be reached. Executives for both sides were hunkered down all night Friday and into Saturday morning at DirecTV headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., trying to work out a deal. And though no pact was reached by the deadline, an extension was granted to keep the channels live while talks continued.

“Channels up. Continuing to extend. Still negotiating,” was the message from AT&T via email at 8:05 am Saturday. The hope is that a deal can be reached that will satisfy both parties without resulting in a service disruption.

AT&T-owned DirecTV, the top U.S. pay-TV service (rankings), today dropped weather-centric WeatherNation and installed rival AccuWeather Network in its place. 

WeatherNation had forecasted the drop on Monday, issuing a release about the upcoming drop from DirecTV and the DirecTV Now streaming service. 

The official statement from DirecTV and AccuWeather was: "AccuWeather Network will be available on DIRECTV (Channel 361) starting Aug. 1. AccuWeather Network’s experienced team of meteorologists and weather broadcasters, both in the studio and in the field, provide weather forecasts with Superior Accuracy, plus compelling weather news and content 24 x 7."

WeatherNation, on DirecTV since 2014, was dismayed. “Ever since DIRECTV posted publicly that they would no longer carry WeatherNation as of Aug. 1, we’ve been bombarded by viewers expressing their frustration and asking us why?,” WeatherNation president Michael Norton said in the statement. “I wish we could give them an answer, but we’re just as shocked and dismayed as they are. It’s an unfortunate decision by DIRECTV, especially given overwhelming customer engagement and the fact that they offered no terms by which they would continue carrying the service.”

AccuWeather, meanwhile, launched today on channel 361, which had been WeatherNation's slot. Accuweather is also carried on Frontier and on Fios, which added it when Fios dropped The Weather Channel in 2015. Accuweather is not on DirecTV Now yet but is expected to be added soon.

WeatherNation's run on DirecTV goes back to the time in 2014 when, as "TV Answer Man" Phillip Swann noted, the satellite-TV provider had opted to drop TWC for a few months. The Weather Channel is long since back on DirecTV.

Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT TV service, will soon broaden its bundle with the launch of NBC Regional Sports Networks in select markets later this month.

In time for MLB’s opening day on April 2, eligible Sling Blue customers will get access to CSN California, CSN Bay Area, CSN Chicago and CSN Mid-Atlantic at no additional cost. The regional nets will also give those subs access to certain, additional NBA and NHL games.

That complements MLB games Sling TV gets on national feeds from TBS, ESPN, Fox and FS1, and select access to regional sports nets from Fox and via Yes Network.

YouTube TV, the OTT TV service that will launch later this year, will also have access to certain regional sports nets from its initial slate of programming partners.

Sling TV, meanwhile, continues to broaden the appeal, lineup and bundling options for what started as a skinny bundle service when it debuted in February 2015.

Of recent note,  Sling TV introduced discounted access to four of its “Extra” programing packages -- Kids Extra, Lifestyle Plus Extra, Comedy Plus Extra and News Extra.

Offering access to larger, more diverse OTT TV programming options is allowing Sling TV “to attract a much broader audience than we were able to in the beginning,” Roger Lynch, Sling TV’s CEO said on Dish’s recent earnings call.  “Plus, we're starting to get past at least the early phase of early adopters and able to attract people who are more comfortable switching to something like this now…We're seeing a broadening in our demographic.” 

Dish no longer breaks out Sling TV subscribers, but MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett estimates that the OTT service has about 1.18 million subs.

fuboTV, the sports-oriented virtual MVPD, has inked deals with several programmers that will pave the way toward a new, and broader OTT-TV base package that will include some local broadcast network feeds and regional sports networks and start at $34.99 per month.

fuboTV announced Wednesday that it had secured agreements with Fox Networks Group, NBCUniversal, A+E Networks, Crown Media Family Networks, Fuse Media, NBA TV and The Weather Channel.

As a result, it plans to launch a new service, initially in beta form, in early January at the promotional price of $34.99 per month. fuboTV also plans to offer add-on packages, a cloud DVR capability, look back and start over offerings, and access to more than 25 TV Everywhere apps from its programming partners.

Customers who sign on for base package at the promotional price will get to keep it after fuboTV raises it to $49.99 per month in about 12 months, David Gandler, fuboTV’s CEO and co-founder, said, noting that the company is in talks with other programmers and network groups.

"We’re going to continue to drive sports networks into the most basic of tiers, and that comes at a cost,” Gandler said.

fuboTV plans to sunset its current $9.99 per month service and incent current subscribers in the coming weeks and months to sign up for the new, fuller version of fuboTV. fuboTV, which launched service in January 2015, ended Q2 2016 with 71,170 subscribers. Gandler said he expects fuboTV to start releasing updated sub numbers following the first quarter of 2017.  

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The new programming deals will essentially double fuboTV’s lineup. Joining the mix will be Fox, NBC, and Telemundo broadcast TV feeds (initially in their respective owned-and-operated markets), as well as regional sports networks from Fox Sports and NBC Sports, and national networks such as BTN, FS1, FS2, FOX College Sports, FOX Deportes, Golf Channel, NBA TV, NBCSN, NBC Universo, and Universal HD. Also included will be Fox Soccer Plus, which is typically offered by MVPDs on an a la carte basis.

The entry package will also include a slate of general, news and entertainment programming from A+E Networks (A&E Network, FYI, History, Lifetime, LMN, Viceland); Crown Media Family Networks (Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries); Fox Networks Group (Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FX, FXM, FXX, National Geographic, Nat Geo Mundo, Nat Geo WILD); Fuse Media (Fuse, FM); NBCU (Bravo, Chiller, Cloo, CNBC, CNBC World, E!, Esquire, MSNBC, Oxygen, Sprout, Syfy, USA Network); and The Weather Channel (Local Now, The Weather Channel).

Even with the wider array of programming, Gandler said fuboTV will continue to be a “sports-first” MVPD, calling it a “natural evolution” of an offering that will remain focused on offering the greatest number of sports networks in a baseline package.

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Gandler believes this sports focus will help to fuboTV reach a specific audience and set it apart from other OTT-TV services such as the just-launched DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue and Sling TV, which, notably, do offer ESPN in their packages.  

“There will be a learning curve over the next 24 to 36 months as we get a sense of who are customers are,” Gandler said.

But fuboTV, he added, will continue to cater to the audience that has been signing up for fuboTV in the early going – an age group of 18-34, 90% men, and 55% Hispanic.

And while fuboTV will also try to expand beyond that demographic group, it’s not trying to take over the world.

“We’re not interested in reaching 10 million subs. We have a very different program in mind,” Gandler said. “We’d like to be in the millions, but we're not trying to position for that top spot. We'll let the big guys battle it out for that. A distant third would not be bad." 

FuboTV, which has raised $20.6 million so far, supports several platforms, including Web browsers, Amazon Fire TV boxes and sticks, Android and iOS mobile devices, Apple TV, Chromecast, Kindle Fire tablets, and Roku  players and Roku TVs.