Dish And Lilly Reach Retrans Agreement

Satellite Business News — Exactly two months after the local broadcast stations owned by Lilly Broadcasting went dark on Dish Network’s DBS service, Dish Network announced last night the two companies had reached a new retransmission agreement.

As a result, the Lilly Broadcasting stations in New York, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico were in the process of being returned to the DBS service. Dish Network did not comment on the new retransmission consent deal, other than to say it was a “multi-year agreement.”

At press time, Lilly Broadcasting had not released a statement. Lilly Broadcasting Chief Operating Officer John Christianson has not responded to the last four emails requesting comment, including one sent earlier yesterday.

The disappearance of the Lilly Broadcasting stations on Dish Network began two months ago with a nasty exchange of statements between the two focusing on local stations the broadcaster operates on Puerto Rico and in the U.S. Virgin Islands — both of which had just been devastated by Hurricane Irma.

The Lilly Broadcasting stations are One Caribbean Television on Puerto Rico; WSEEP, the CBS affiliate in both island areas; WNEY-VI, the ABC affiliate on the U.S. Virgin Islands; the ABC and CBS affiliates in Elmira, N.Y. (WENY); the CBS and NBC affiliates in Erie, Pa. (WICU and WSEE); and the ABC and Me TV affiliates in Honolulu (KITV).

The two-month blackout of the Lilly Broadcasting stations was the second time this year satellite TV consumers lost the company’s local outlets. AT&T’s DirecTV DBS service went without the same stations for about two weeks last spring. Dish Network settled a similar dispute with CBS last week.

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