The Hawaiian independent station was dropped from the satellite service Thursday following four extensions over the last seven weeks of its carriage deal.
RETRANS | DMA 66
KFVE Honolulu Gone From DirecTV
On Oct. 19 at 6 p.m. local time, DirecTV dropped HITV License’s KFVE (K5 The HomeTeam) Honolulu (DMA 66).
According to the station, which is operated by Raycom Media under a shared services agreement, “The disruption is the latest in a series of recent blackouts of local stations by DirecTV. The satellite carrier removed seven American Spirit television stations from its lineup on Sept. 21 and has yet to restore those channels to its customers. Prior to that, DirecTV also dropped WBNS in Columbus, Ohio and WTHR in Indianapolis, Indiana, for more than five weeks.”
KFVE General Manager John Fink said: “We are a single, local television station, attempting to negotiate against a powerful international company, “stated “This is a trend with DirecTV in its negotiations with single stations or small station groups. They ignore the local stations’ value to their local communities and work to avoid fairly compensating them for the programming they offer, including the vital, local news coverage provided every day.”
“We continue to attempt to negotiate with DirecTV and we are hopeful that a deal will be reached to return K5 The HomeTeam to our loyal DirecTV viewers,” Fink added. “We have granted DirecTV four extensions along the way over the past seven weeks in our quest to get this issue fairly resolved and have not had any response to our requests to negotiate.”
KFVE is carried by other local providers and is streaming online at www.K5TheHomeTeam.com.
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