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The Programming Disputes Thread

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2019/07/26/Media/Dish.aspx

Update Dish has removed the Disney owned regional Fox Sports outlets. But thats currently being converted into Sinclair Sports outlets.

Dish Network viewers do not have access to the Fox Sports-branded RSNs anymore after those channels were pulled from both Dish Network and Sling TV at 12:00pm ET on Friday. Additionally, no agreement appears to be on the horizon. A statement emailed from a Fox Sports Regional Networks spokesperson says, "The Fox RSNs offered to extend Dish and Sling under the current terms of our existing agreement, but Dish and Sling rejected our offer.” In a statement, Dish Network said that it offered “a short-term extension, in an effort to quickly negotiate a fair, long-term deal for our customers." Dish: "The RSNs offered an extension that would put the new expiration date up against the 2020 Major League Baseball Opening Day.” The move affects channels like YES Network, FS North and FS South, which carry the division-leading Yankees, Twins and Braves
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https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/bipartisan-bill-would-end-retrans-copyright-licenses

Veteran teammates in an effort to reform the retransmission consent system have introduced new legislation that would repeal retransmission consent--though not must-carry--and compulsory copyright licenses, including the satellite license.

Elements of both retrans (good faith bargaining requirements) and the satellite license are set to expire unless the Congress renews the STELAR law by year's end.

The Modern Television Act of 2019 was introduced by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Steve Scalise (R-La.), which they said would address "perennial broadcast TV blackouts." It contains familiar asks from the pair, including preventing blackouts and providing for outside arbitration of negotiation impasses.
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Now the retrans debate are at play in Congress.

 
WUPA-TV blacked out on DirecTV....

Looks like due to a carriage dispute, any CBS O&O is blacked out for DirecTV customers. Not that I watch much on TV-69 here but interesting that they don't pipe in another (NON-CBS owned) CW affiliate, like out of Greenville, Charlotte or Augusta. Isn't that normal practice? And how about stations like CBS O&O WBBM/Chicago? They probably piped in WCIA/Springfield or for New York's WCBS, they may may have to pipe in WYOU/Scranton...until dispute is over... ?


http://www.tdogmedia.com/2019/07/cbs-at-blackout-looms.html
 
deejaywestbrook said:
Looks like due to a carriage dispute, any CBS O&O is blacked out for DirecTV customers. Not that I watch much on TV-69 here but interesting that they don't pipe in another (NON-CBS owned) CW affiliate, like out of Greenville, Charlotte or Augusta. Isn't that normal practice? And how about stations like CBS O&O WBBM/Chicago? They probably piped in WCIA/Springfield or for New York's WCBS, they may may have to pipe in WYOU/Scranton...until dispute is over... ?


http://www.tdogmedia.com/2019/07/cbs-at-blackout-looms.html
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legally they can't. The only way satellite can substitute a disputed network is when there is no affiliate in that DMA. Example is Mankato, MN is just CBS & FOX (KEYC). So satellite imports NBC & ABC from Minneapolis. When Tegna (owner of KARE NBC) pulled their channels off Dish, they were able to substitute a different NBC (they gave us WHO Des Moines) but that is the ONLY example of being allowed to import a different affiliate.
 
deejaywestbrook said:
Looks like due to a carriage dispute, any CBS O&O is blacked out for DirecTV customers. Not that I watch much on TV-69 here but interesting that they don't pipe in another (NON-CBS owned) CW affiliate, like out of Greenville, Charlotte or Augusta. Isn't that normal practice? And how about stations like CBS O&O WBBM/Chicago? They probably piped in WCIA/Springfield or for New York's WCBS, they may may have to pipe in WYOU/Scranton...until dispute is over... ?


http://www.tdogmedia.com/2019/07/cbs-at-blackout-looms.html
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The Only thing CBS is saying to people who were affected by the AT&T Contract Dispute is subscribe to All Access in the DMA's where the CW/CBS affiliates are owned by CBS Inc. But CBS was also talking about getting CBSN Locals to other places besides Los Angeles and New York. Sacramento, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami, Boston and Pittsburgh were waiting for their local edition of CBSN to launch but that is pending though.



https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/cbs-launching-local-news-streaming-services
 
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Modern Television Act of 2019 sounds like it could send these carriage dispute blackouts packing if it passes, at least some of them. I'm one of those who have not had a major network on satellite for months and months. KFFX Tri-Cities was pulled off DirecTV in late February after Northwest couldn't reach a deal. Brady now says (according to the KAYU website) that AT&T refuses to even budge, refuses to respond to him for any type of deal, what have you...he's now telling DIRECTV subscribers to DUMP them! Paraphrasing it, basically he says there's no solution for the foreseeable future and if you want FOX, head for Dish or a cable company. (Until Dish Network dumps FOX too!!!)
Spectrum did this BS for 4 months last year. Now DIRECTV. Dish is probably next.

I'm just glad carriage disputes don't affect over-the-air signals. But I do feel for those living in Mabton, or Naches, or Cle Elum, etc. where KCYU is hard to receive on either their main transmitter or the Ellensburg translator. Some of those towns don't have cable anymore due to the high penetration of dishes. Their only choice is to dump DIRECTV for Dish. It's even worse for viewers of KAYU, where the Spokane DMA goes from east of Wenatchee, up to the Canadian border, all the way to the Montana border and all around north Idaho. There are regions in Idaho where OTA TV just isn't possible. Where they probably all had C-Band dishes in the good ole' days or extreme high-range antennas to get translators bouncing off the mountains.

If only SyndEx wasn't a thing! Get a loophole to import an out-of-market station on the spotbeam if they want to blackout a network affiliate. Instead of '11' for Fox, we would be seeing a '13' or a '12' in our channel lineup. Either that or open up the DNS Fox to us (which they just cannot do anymore but I wish). I'll take months of KTTV over months of no KFFX.
 
https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/pla...e-until-the-end-of-july-to-strike-a-new-deal/

Playstation Vue and NFL Network have the end of July 2019 for a new contract or face a dispute.

Yes even Streaming/Internet TV providers are subjected to blackouts too like cable AT&T, Dish, Xfinity (Onwed by NBC) and Charter.

Last month, PlayStation Vue rushed to strike new deals with AMC, Discovery, NBCUniversal, and Turner Networks. Sony did successfully get new deals, but it resulted in a $5 a month price hike for subscribers. Now Sony is warning that they have until the end of July to reach a new deal with the NFL Network or it will go dark on PlayStation Vue.

Here is the statement Sony posted on the PlayStation Vue website about these negotiations:

Most of the programming/content you watch on PlayStation™Vue is licensed from programmers for the right to air their networks/channels. Once these agreements near expiration, we enter into renewal discussions where we work hard to try and obtain the best value for our customers. Though infrequent, sometimes certain licenses will not be renewed, in which case PlayStation™Vue would no longer carry the affected channels or networks. This section will be updated periodically to list channels and networks coming up for renewal. Please note that the dates listed below are subject to change.
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https://www.multichannel.com/news/ps-vue-might-drop-nesn-ahead-of-bruins-game

This is not the first time Playstation Vue faced a contract dispute back in April there the NESN/Playstation Vue dispute.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/busine...oves-stations-playstation-20180504-story.html

And there were others.
 
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https://thestreamable.com/news/this-is-why-there-are-more-network-blackouts-than-ever

Over the past few months, we’ve seen channels dropped across the cable, satellite, and streaming industries — most frequently local channels. In the last few months, DirecTV dropped Nexstar affiliates, CBS O&O locals, and CBS in its entirety on DIRECTV NOW. This came after a dispute with smaller station owners Northwest Broadcasting, Deerfield Media, Roberts Media, Second Generation of Iowa, GoCom Media, MPS Media, Howard Stirk Holding, and Waitt Broadcasting — which saw their local channels disappear.


But they’re not the only ones. Dish has dropped Meredith affiliates and had a 9 month battle with Univision which saw the channel go dark across Dish — and to ultimately never return to their streaming service Sling TV. AT&T-owned HBO and Cinemax were dropped by Dish in November. In April, PlayStation Vue dropped NESN from their streaming service, after having a lengthy dispute with Sinclair last year.

AT&T renewed deals with Viacom and A+E at the wire, but dropped NFL Network earlier this year. Just yesterday, Dish and Disney agreed to an temporary extension to avoid a blackout of most notably Fox RSNs and YES Network. Sling TV and Dish also had expiring deals with other channels now owned by Disney including FX and National Geographic. and those that remained with Fox Corp. like Fox, Fox News, Fox Business Network and FS1.
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Here is an overview on contract disputes. At what point do the companies in these cable/internet TV disputes that they are like the TV version of Ed Stoltz. Both sides claiming to be right and blaming the other side of being greedy.
 
https://www.post-gazette.com/local/...anchise-fees-local-Aug-1/stories/201907250100

Santiago Garces, the city’s director of Innovation and Performance, points to the cable box connected to a small TV in his City-County Building office. A live look at a public hearing in Pittsburgh City Council Chambers is playing on the flat screen.

“There’s boxes like that throughout the city, in community center so people can watch TV and whatnot,” Mr. Garces said. “In our case, we have them in the office so that we can actually tune in to the city channel [to] see if the council is talking about the department.”

The boxes and internet connectivity in 52, or roughly half, of the city’s buildings are provided free of charge by Comcast and Verizon. Mr. Garces estimated the value of free cable services from Comcast to be roughly $68,000 a year. The companies also give hundreds of thousands in grants each year for public, education and government cable services.

Now Mr. Garces and others fear that those in-kind services could be deducted from fees, or rent, that the big cable players pay to the city for access to run cable and maintain its system in the public right of way — for example, to lay cable under city streets, space that is a “limited resource,” Mr. Garces said.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Thursday on the proposed rule change.
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Now Public Access advocates finds themselves in a dispute at the FCC over Cable Access future on August 1st.
 
https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/07/30/robservations-cbs-2-ratings-plunge-att-blackout/

As expected, the ongoing impasse between CBS and AT&T is wreaking havoc on WBBM-Channel 2’s already low ratings. The blackout of CBS 2 on DirecTV, DirecTV Now and U-verse cable systems appears to have cost the CBS-owned station more than a quarter of its viewership. Nielsen household ratings dropped an average of 28 percent around the clock last week, with some time periods (including CBS 2’s 10 p.m. newscast) down as much as 33 percent. Chicago is one of 17 cities where CBS programming has been blacked out since July 20 when the company’s retransmission agreement expired. AT&T U-verse and DirecTV customers can receive a one-time credit of $15 by calling (800) 288-2020.
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Also this statement of ratings down due to the AT&T Dispute is most likely true for other CBS/CW affiliates owned by CBS Inc and Nexstar owned stations in the AT&T Dispute.
 
RadioPatrol said:
https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/07/30/robservations-cbs-2-ratings-plunge-att-blackout/




Also this statement of ratings down due to the AT&T Dispute is most likely true for other CBS/CW affiliates owned by CBS Inc and Nexstar owned stations in the AT&T Dispute.
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sounds like AT&T's strategy to harm the ratings is working, but AT&T ain't gonna cave yet, i think this dispute will be resolved after the first week of the NFL preseason as i think the plan is make sure CBS gets desperate for a deal.
 
I've said before that more of these disputes seem to come up right before the start of the NFL and fall tv seasons so it wouldn't surprise me if this is a tactic that AT&T and Dish are using but can also come back and bite them in the rear end with more subscribers dropping them when their contracts run out.
 
anotherguy said:
I've said before that more of these disputes seem to come up right before the start of the NFL and fall tv seasons so it wouldn't surprise me if this is a tactic that AT&T and Dish are using but can also come back and bite them in the rear end with more subscribers dropping them when their contracts run out.
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And the general public will see AT&T and Dish as the national edition of Ed Stoltz but with TV Disputes. Ed Stoltz has his dispute confined with the FCC and the Sacramento branch of Entercom and that's nothing compared to AT&T and Dish does though. With AT&T, Dish and others it's nationwide and it affects more people as in the case of AT&T disputes with Nexstar, and CBS. Or with Dish Network, Disney, AT&T and Meredith.
 
There will sure be a hell of a lot of Eastern Washington Seahawks fans complaining if KFFX and KAYU stay off DIRECTV come September!
 


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