Freelancers: Is MTV slow paying your recent invoices? Because one tipster tells us the Viacom subsidiary followed hundreds of layoffs with a policy to freeze outgoing payments October through January.

Invoices reportedly have been taking longer and longer to get paid, with checks cut only once per month in 2008. But supposedly things have gotten worse lately, per word from on high that October invoices shouldn't be paid until 2009. That's an awful holiday gift for the many freelancers who have formed their own paper companies (like LLCs) — people like editors, freelancers producers, camera operators, sound recordists and others.

Our tipster even claims that production accountants are told "to be 'wishy washy' when it comes to answering questions from disgruntled workers who have been waiting more than two months to get paid."

The greedy television executive played by Bill Murray in Scrooged would be proud. If you're affected or have any other information, send it our way.

UPDATE: A freelancer editor on an MTV show wrote in to say "my last few paychecks have been s-l-o-w. I still haven't received my paycheck from a bit more than a month ago. They used to be prompt, as in, less than a week after submitting an timesheet."

Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at ryan@gawker.com.