AT&T U-verse dropped the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel at 12:01 a.m. ET Wednesday in a dispute over fees.
In a statement Wednesday, AT&T said Hallmark owner Crown Media Holdings has not offered a "fair deal."
"We offered to extend the current deal while talks continued, and Hallmark rejected that offer," according to AT&T's statement. "We don't want customers to lose their programming, but we believe strongly that our customers should not have to pay more than their fair share for Hallmark's channels, which is exactly what Hallmark is demanding."
The channels each 2.5 million AT&T U-verse customers.
Crown CEO Bill Abbott said in a statement he was "stunned by (AT&T's) apparent disregard for facts."
The move came as Time Warner Cable and Disney make progress toward resolving their own carriage fee negotiation dispute. The media giants look close to reaching a deal in time for Thursday's college football kickoff, key programming for Disney's ESPN unit.
Negotiations between AT&T and Hallmark broke off Aug. 26. At the time, Abbott accused AT&T of "bullying one of the nation’s last surviving independent cable networks by insisting on unreasonable rates that would seriously jeopardize our longevity."
Crown is willing to restart negotiations at any time, Abbott said Wednesday.
AT&T notified its customers Aug.1 via postcard that the channels might go dark.
