A month-long retrans impasse between AT&T and Dispatch Broadcast Group has been settled. A new three-year renewal has returned Dispatch’s CBS affiliate WBNS Columbus, Ohio, and NBC affiliate WTHR Indianapolis to DirecTV and U-Verse. Terms were not announced. DirecTV also ended its dispute with Denali Media Holdings.
DMAS 28 & 34
Dispatch Stations Return To DirecTV, U-Verse
(Satellite Business News) — After more than a month long stalemate, the two local TV stations owned by The Dispatch Broadcast Group returned to AT&T’s DirecTV and “U-verse” video services Friday after the two companies reached a new retransmission consent agreement.
Dispatch owns the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis and the CBS affiliate in Columbus, Ohio.
The stations went dark on the two AT&T services early last month, after one extension, and the two sides have been trading charges ever since.
But in a message to viewers over the weekend, the stations said, “Attention DirecTV and ‘U-verse’ subscribers. [This station] is back on your system! After reaching a fair agreement with DirecTv and AT&T ‘U-verse,’ all of your favorite programs have returned to your channel line-up.”
The website DirecTv operates regarding retransmission consent agreements had not been updated about the agreement as of last night, and no statement announcing the new deal had been received.
Meanwhile, one of the longest running yet least covered retransmission consent disputes was quietly settled recently when DirecTv and Denali Media Holdings reached a new deal. DirecTv subscribers in Alaska’s two biggest TV markets had been without satellite access to three Denali Media owned local stations since early this year.
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Denali Media owns the CBS and NBC affiliates in Juneau and the CBS affiliate in Anchorage. The company also owns three stations which re-transmit those affiliates in small Alaska towns. That impasse was one of the longest in retransmission consent history.
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