Tegna had cut off Dish subscribers' access to its local channels Friday evening in more than three dozen markets because of a contract dispute. The dispute affected 46 TV stations operated by Tegna in 38 markets across 33 states. On Sunday, the two sides said they reached a multi-year agreement, but did not provide further details.
RETRANS
Tegna-Dish Accord Restores Stations
NEW YORK (AP) — TV station operator Tegna and Dish Network said Sunday they resolved their contract dispute, and that Tegna stations would return to Dish effectively immediately.
Tegna had cut off Dish subscribers’ access to its local channels Friday evening in more than three dozen markets because of a contract dispute. The dispute affected 46 TV stations operated by Tegna in 38 markets across 33 states. On Sunday, the two sides said they reached a multi-year agreement, but did not provide further details.
The dispute came about because Dish had refused to pay the rate increase pushed by Tegna for retransmission consent fees.
Tegna Inc., based in McLean, Va., had previously said Dish routinely drops cable and broadcast channels and called it a “serial dropper of channels.” It said it has always been able to reach a fair agreement with other providers without disrupting viewers. It noted that Dish was “preventing its customers from accessing valued channels, even as customers continue to pay for that content.”
Dish, based in Englewood, Colorado, had said it offered a short-term contract extension to Tegna while negotiations continued, but that Tegna instead chose to “use innocent consumers as bargaining chips.”
Tegna is the largest independent station group of major network affiliates in the top 25 markets, reaching about one third of all TV households nationwide, according to its website. It’s the largest independent owner of NBC and CBS affiliates in the country and is the fourth-largest owner of ABC affiliates
BRAND CONNECTIONS
Comments (5)
Wagner Pereira says:
October 12, 2015 at 1:55 am
Just in time for the Sunday NFL Games. Surprised?
Keith ONeal says:
October 12, 2015 at 10:44 pm
Just another stupid comment by Insider, once again proving that he knows NOTHING!
Wagner Pereira says:
October 13, 2015 at 6:30 am
The fact that it is true shows how out of it you are.
Tony Alexander says:
October 13, 2015 at 9:38 am
What I don’t understand is this: I am a FiOS subscriber, yet on the Tegna station that I watch there was this constant crawl over the top of the screen that points out that the station is in a dispute with Dish (I guess some would point out that is the power of BROADCASTING, sending a message that is irrelevant to all viewers. The message can’t be targeted?). I am NOT a Dish subscriber. I guess the point is that Tegna wants to point out a dispute between the rich and the wealthy. Then, when the agreement is reached, not a word from Tegna and furthermore the PUBLIC, and especially the Dish subscribers, are not told the terms of the agreement. The PUBLIC is denied the ability to see the terms of the agreement and, in fact, it seems to be almost certain that the Dish subscribers are going to be the ones affected. The Dish subscribers will pay and Tegna will reap the benefits and all details are kept from those who are paying. Very strange.
Wagner Pereira says:
October 14, 2015 at 7:18 am
There are 2 ways that MVPD’s receive feeds. 1) OTA or 2) a duplicate fiber feed of the Station’s ASI output that is sent to the Transmitter. This does not allow for Tegna Stations (or any other Station) to target crawls to specific MVPDs subscribers – though I do not disagree with you that it becomes very annoying to other subscribers. I have long maintained that DBS Companies should move their MPEG4 encoders to the stations so a higher quality primary signal can be sent to subscribers than what is actually seen OTA at the same cost (not increasing ASI Fiber Feed Costs – especially as DBS are not passing anything but .1 channels but paying for 19.2 ASI Fiber Feeds), but that has never gained traction. That would allow stations to target specific systems (at least to the DBS Feeds). Quite frankly, I believe all MVPDs should get a full 19.2 feed of the Primary Signal, which would look better than what is broadcast OTA. In fact,a QAM can pass 38.82 Mbps. If Stations feed this type of quality signal to the Cable/Telco MVPD, that would make the Retransmission Fee worth a lot more to the sub.