Much ink has been spilled lately about the unfortunate economics of the new streaming ecosystem. As with most things TV-related, it seems just about everyone has an opinion.

What almost all of these stories seem to leave out, however, is the most important factor in why streaming is ultimately such a bad business, especially for traditional media companies: the absence of carriage and retrans fees.

Carriage fees are what MVPDs pay to “carry” cable networks (hence the name) and have been around since the start of cable TV or thereabouts, as the more popular cable networks had the upper hand and MVPDs needed them to attract subscribers. 

Retrans (retransmission) fees came about with the passage of the Cable Act of 1992. That law, whose full name is the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act, was passed because, with cable TV having become broadly popular in the U.S., some MVPDs were forcing local broadcast stations to pay them in order to be part of their service.

This, Congress said, was unfair, as it could prevent viewers from having access to the full spectrum of opinions. The law went further still and required cable operators to carry all of the locally available commercial broadcast stations … and pay those stations retrans fees for the privilege. 

In many ways, the law was the cable operators own doing: They’d gotten greedy, and the combination of near-monopoly status in most areas plus poor customer service and high prices meant there was enough popular support to essentially stick it to Big Cable.

A sizable bipartisan majority (74-25 in the Senate, 308-114 in the House) was able to override Bush The Elder’s veto of the bill.

But here’s the thing: Cable and retrans fees pump about $10 billion -$15 billion (with a “b”) into the coffers of TV networks every year,

The big media companies have a whole system in place, too, to ensure they extract the maximum amount of money from the MVPDs. It’s called “bundling,” and what they do is tell the MVPDs that if they want their most popular offerings (their flagship broadcast network, for example) then they need to take all their other assorted cable networks, too.

The result, for consumers, has been expensive, inflated pay TV bundles — you didn’t really think the MVPDs were going to pay those carriage and retrans fees themselves, did you? Of course not — they pass those costs on to the consumer in the form of ever-higher cable bills.

More than that, though, the existence of carriage and retrans fees means the traditional TV ecosystem has received an infusion of billions of dollars each year for the past 30 years.

If that sounds a lot like a lottery winning, you’re not wrong.

While the C-suite may have kept more than its fair share of those billions, they were dispensed elsewhere, into high salaries for writers, actors, showrunners and producers, lavish production budgets for hit series, generous back-end payments, etc., right on down to high-end craft services spreads.

Only with streaming, all that goes away.

There are no carriage and retrans fees in streaming because who would you get to pay them? There’s no one who needs to carry the streaming services. At least not more than the streaming services need someone to carry them. (The wonders of competition.)

Worse still, as cord cutting numbers grow, carriage and retrans numbers shrink. So it’s not as if the networks can put the genie back into the bottle.

The Road Ahead

The good news is that even without those billions, streaming can still be a lucrative business. It will just never be as lucrative as linear TV has been for the past 30 years.

That’s something the big media companies are just now waking up to.

To their credit, Warner Bros. Discovery seems to have figured this out before anyone else. It is widely suspected that is why they pulled the plug on CNN Plus.

Cable news commands high carriage fees because MVPDs feel that cable news plays a significant role in keeping people subscribing to cable. Thus, it’s worth it to the MVPDs to keep paying for CNN.

The new WBD management looked at all the money they’d be getting from those carriage fees over the next 5 to ten years versus the subscription and ad revenue they’d be getting from CNN Plus and realized the former was a much bigger number. That's a particularly relevant observation when your company is drowning in debt.

The rest of the industry? They seem to have followed Netflix off a cliff without ever taking into consideration that Netflix had no carriage and retrans fees to give up.

Which brings us to where we are now. Writers and actors frustrated (and rightfully so) that the pie has suddenly gotten smaller and not everyone is giving up an equal share. Disney making noises about selling off most of its key linear assets. And there are dozens of schadenfreude-filled articles about the death of TV.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that streaming can, and most likely will be profitable. The television industry in every other country seems to be doing okay without carriage and retrans fees. Granted, the Brits, Danes and Israelis don’t shoot 25-episode seasons, but there’s a lot to be said for 8 to 10 episode campaigns, and the aforementioned countries seem to turn out a lot of good programming that way.

So yes, streaming can be profitable. It just won’t be as wildly profitable as it was in the carriage and retrans era.

The New Year rang in with a bit of a whimper on the retransmission consent front, with the American Television Alliance estimating that blackouts in 2021 — those periods when stations go dark as deals expire — were about one-third their number in the previous year. But distributors won’t have much time to celebrate, as the traditional deal cycle suggests that 2022 could be another record year for broadcast service disruptions.  

According to the ATVA, a trade group that represents satellite and cable companies, there were about 105 blackouts in 2021, less than one-third the record 336 stations that pulled their signal in the prior year and less than half the 278 stations that were blacked out in 2019. 

The lack of heated disputes as the clock neared 12 on Dec. 31 was in line with what Kagan, a research arm of S&P Global Market Intelligence, had predicted nearly 11 months prior. Back in February, the researcher had estimated that retrans blackouts would be lessened simply because there were fewer deals set to expire. According to Kagan, about 22 retrans deals affecting 30.2 million subscribers were expected to expire in 2021. That compares to 2020, when retrans blackouts affected about 56 million homes. 

Kagan based its predictions on the usual three-year timeline from the last public retrans transaction announcement or from earnings calls and investor presentations. Typically, broadcasters and distributors don’t reveal when a deal is up until it is, citing non-disclosure agreements embedded in retrans contracts. 

With that in mind, 2022 could see a big resurgence in retrans battles, as more deals are expected to enter the expiration queue. 

AT&T, which spun off a minority stake in its DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse TV units to TPG in February, struck several big retrans agreements in 2019 that could come up for renewal this year. Included in that mix are Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group, CBS, Hearst TV and others that involved more than 300 stations alone. While it is no guarantee that all of those stations will go dark for some period this year, it’s a good guess that many will.

Other distributors who reached large retrans deals in 2019 include Comcast (with Nexstar and Tegna), Charter Communications (Nexstar and Tegna), Verizon Communications (Tegna, Nexstar and Cox Media), Suddenlink Communications (Tegna) and Frontier Communications (Nexstar). Dish Network reached a retrans deal with Meredith (now part of Gray Television) and Cox Media Group in July 2019. It is unclear as to whether the Meredith stations will fall under Gray TV’s retrans schedule.    

Also: No Cigar 

While there were fewer actual blackouts in 2021, several disputes that began earlier continued into the New Year. The largest is Tegna’s dispute with Dish Network, involving stations in about 53 markets that went dark on Oct. 6. Both sides have accused the other of negotiating in bad faith, and there was no indication at press time that a resolution was near. 

Verizon Fios TV customers lost access to Tegna stations in about five markets on Jan. 4, after the parties couldn’t renew their retrans agreement, which was originally scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2021. 

Also: AT&T and TPG: There is No Why 

Many of the bigger retrans disputes in 2021 took place at the beginning of the year and were resolved in the subsequent weeks and months. Dish Network reached a long-term carriage deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group’s 144 stations in November, but the broadcaster failed to reach an agreement for its regional sports networks. The Sinclair stations never went dark to Dish customers during those negotiations — the original deal was set to expire in August — because of a series of short-term extensions offered by the broadcaster. 

Almost exactly one year ago, Cox Media Group resolved a 20-day retrans blackout of its stations to Suddenlink subscribers, and in February last year Cox Media settled a five-day blackout with AT&T, getting its stations back in front of DirecTV, U-verse TV and AT&T TV customers mere hours before the start of the Super Bowl.

Also: New Year Ushers End to Several Cable Networks 

On the streaming side, YouTubeTV avoided a prolonged blackout of Disney channels by hammering out a deal with the entertainment giant that brought back broadcaster ABC‘s owned stations and cable channels ESPN, FX, Disney Channel, National Geographic and Freeform after a 36-hour hiatus. YouTube had promised its subscribers a $15 one-time credit to their monthly bill if a Disney blackout occurred, a pledge the company said it would still honor.   

The Google-owned streaming service also reached a carriage deal with NBCUniversal in October, avoiding a blackout. 

In the meantime, YouTubeTV and Hulu Live+ TV are still locked in a carriage battle with Sinclair’s Bally Sports Network RSNs, which went dark to those streamers in October 2020. 

Regional sports channel MSG Network hammered out a deal with Verizon’s Fios service on October 6, while its ongoing fight with Comcast, which began earlier in the month, raged on. At press time, MSG was still off Comcast systems.   

Dish dropped RSNs Root Sports Network and AT&T Sports Network in September.  Three months later it dropped its final RSN -- New England Sports Network -- making Dish the only major MVPD without a regional sports network. 

In July, Dish and HBO ended their three-year carriage battle, while earlier that month ViacomCBS struck a carriage deal for its linear and streaming networks with Charter Communications. In June, Charter struck a separate carriage deal with Multicultural News Network while Verizon signed on Black News Channel that same month. 

In January 2021, CMG struck a retrans deal with Suddenlink, while Fios averted a blackout of Hearst TV channels by hammering out a deal at the beginning of last year. 

So it isn't all doom and gloom when distributors and broadcasters make their ways to the negotiating table, and it seems the likelihood of a deal getting done without a  disruption in service is increasing. At the same time, the threat of a blackout is sometimes a broadcaster's only negotiating leverage, and most aren't afraid to use it.   

Broadcasters and distributors have been playing the blackout game for years. And though the decline in pay TV subscribership and the increase of direct-to-consumer offerings that include broadcast fare could eventually eliminate the need for these disputes — or maybe someone will invent an antenna-like device that will allow consumers to capture broadcast signals over the air for free — chances are that’s going to take a few years to fully play out. Until then, consumers, distributors and programmers will just have to deal with their retrans agita. ■

Cable operators want the FCC to reconsider whether broadcasters should be able to use carriage of their primary ATSC 1.0 TV station signal to leverage carriage of new ATSC 3.0 signals, as is the case under current FCC rules.

That came in a meeting between NCTA representatives and Media Bureau officials last week to talk about the National Association of Broadcasters petition related to ATSC 3.0 carriage.

Also Read: New Year, Same Old Carriage Clash

Back in 2017, MVPDs and others asked the FCC to carve out the new ATSC 3.0 signals from retrans negotiations, but the FCC decided not to do so.

In a petition for declaratory rulemaking filed in November 2020, NAB asked the FCC to declare that various multi-station arrangements for hosting and originating multicast streams in ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 are OK. The NAB has not asked the FCC to extend carriage rights to multicast streams, which are not subject to mandatory cable carriage. But the petition does say the FCC should exempt the new arrangements from broadcast-ownership rules, something to which pay TV distributors object.

In the meeting with FCC officials, according to a document filed with the commission, NCTA said that those multi-station arrangements "could exacerbate concerns regarding ATSC 3.0 carriage and costs and could place additional strain on cable capacity."

If the FCC decides to open a rulemaking on NAB's proposal to change its ATSC 3.0 channel-sharing rules, it should at least consider whether it should prohibit those broadcasters from using retrans to gain carriage of ATSC 3.0 signals.

Also Read: FCC Won't Exclude ATSC 3.0 Signals From Retrans Deals

NCTA suggested that the FCC should not consider the FCC's petition in the larger context of other ATSC 3.0 rules that NCTA thinks may need revising, starting with that ATSC 3.0 leverage but including whether ATSC 3.0 patents should have to be licensed on a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis. Sinclair, for example, has a handful of ATSC 3.0 patents as well as being a huge proponent of the standard.

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen told analysts Monday that he was “disappointed” that Sinclair Broadcast Group has decided to negotiate its upcoming retrans agreement in the press, adding that there is still some hope that a deal can be reached.

On a conference call with analysts to discuss Q2 results, Ergen said talks are continuing. Sinclair said earlier this morning that it believed it was unlikely a deal could be reached.

“I’m disappointed that they put a press release out that they expect the networks to come down. I think we have until Aug. 16,” Ergen said on the conference call. “Many negotiations come down to the wire, so we’re still going to bargain in good faith.”

That was likely a nod to Federal Communications Commission requirements that all parties in retrans agreements negotiate in good faith. Ergen added that there are other ways for his customers to receive the broadcast channels, either via antennas, Locast, or streaming services like Paramount Plus and Peacock.

But many analysts had hoped that the Sinclair RSNs -- which Dish dropped in 2019  -- would be included in the retrans talks. Ergen said he sympathized with the broadcaster, adding that regarding the RSNs, Dish first negotiated for the Fox Sports RSNs when they were owned by Disney, which purchased them as part of its $71.3 billion buy of certain Fox assets in March 2019. By the time Disney sold those channels to Sinclair later in May 2019, Ergen said reaching a carriage deal for the channels became a moot point. 

Also Read: Sinclair RSNs: Focus on the Dish Deal 

“By the time Sinclair owned it  and was able to negotiate it, our customers that wanted regional sports had left,” Ergen said. “There was no way in fairness to our customers that we could tax them in a basic package, when almost nobody who wanted regional sports was left. 

“I think there are innovative ways to reinvigorate the regional sports networks, Sinclair themselves have talked about it in a direct to consumer product,” Ergen continued. “We’ll continue to work with Sinclair to the extent they want to try to work with us in a win-win situation. But if not, … my expectation and hope would be that ultimately the companies try to resolve all the issues of concern to both parties.”

Ergen was mostly talking about the broadcast channels, but he said he would be open to any deal that included the RSNs, within reason. 

“If there are some opportunities in regional sports that make sense for us and Sinclair, we’re happy to talk about anything that’s interesting and helps our customers, but we’re not interested in taxing our customers when they don't watch the channels,” Ergen said. “Our customers will understand that. We may lose some customers if the networks go down. We’ve been through this before. The impact of [losing] local channels used to be devastating, and it’s still pretty bad, but it's not the same. And there are other alternatives.”

Later, Ergen said that the dispute with Sinclair is largely due to the fees they are requesting, and not an attempt to bundle the RSN networks with broadcast channels.

“At the end of the day it’s about money, it’s about economics,” Ergen said. “That hasn’t changed in any programming negotiation that I’ve ever been involved in.”

In a press release of its own issued after the conference call, Dish said Sinclair is demanding nearly $1 billion in retrans fees for its stations, which it claims is a “massive increase,” from its previous agreement. 

“Sinclair is making these outrageous demands, turning its back on its public interest obligation and putting customers in the middle of its negotiations,” Dish TV group president Brian Neylon in a press release. “...This negotiating tactic is used to upset our customers and intimidate us into accepting outrageous contract terms — a tactic the channel owner uses frequently.”

Dish directed customers to its DISHPromise.com website for more information, adding that it still hoped a deal could still be reached. 

“There is still time to reach an agreement with Sinclair that is fair for all parties involved, especially our customers,” Neylon said. “We will continue to fight on behalf of Dish customers to keep TV bills as low as possible. Despite the fact that Sinclair has walked away from the table multiple times, we stand ready to negotiate in good faith.”

Gray Television is pushing the FCC to classify over-the-top video providers as MVPDs so they will have to negotiate carriage with stations.

That is according to a presentation to FCC commissioner Nathan Simington and his media advisor, Adam Cassady, by Gray counsel and former FCC commissioner Robert McDowell.

Gray is tying that and request for other regulatory changes to the value of local journalism.

In a presentation to Simington and Cassady, according to an FCC document, McDowell said that because of "quirks" in copyright law and FCC regs, OTT services like Hulu and YouTube TV don't have to negotiate retransmission consent with individual stations.

Also Read: Affiliates Ask FCC to Revive OTT-Regulating Item

Instead, he said, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC negotiate the agreements then offer them to stations at what he calls rates often "far lower than the stations receive for traditional MVPD retransmission consent."

That, said McDowell and Gray, is a "regulatory distortion" that "artificially reduces
station resources that otherwise would be directed to local news production."

McDowell pointed out that the FCC has a proceeding pending since 2014--when then chairman Tom Wheeler teed it up as a way to promote OTT competition to traditional video--to "correct" the problem by classifying linear
OTTs as MVPDs when it comes to retransmission consent.

Linear OTTs provide day and date lineups of content channels similar to cable and satellite operators. Wheeler wanted to make sure those OTTs got nondiscriminatory access to programming affiliated with competing cable and satellite distributors.

Last year, and under previous FCC chairman Ajit Pai, the network affiliate associations collectively asked the FCC to reopen the issue, pointing out that OTTs were beyond the reach of retrans and program access rules.

While it had Simington's ear, Gray also called for excluding local news from the FCC rule that if a station providers more than 15% of programming to another, the FCC treats the two as co-owned and thus subject to limits on duopolies. "Excluding local news from this limitation would incentivize stronger stations to supply local news programming to weaker stations and increase the amount of local news content aired in the market," McDowell told them. 

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen didn’t pull any punches Thursday in the company's Q1 earnings call, predicting the demise of retransmission consent and likening wireless carrier T-Mobile to the lead character in Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

Ergen had a lot to unpack on the call, as the company has been under pressure concerning its wireless partner T-Mobile’s decision to shutter its CDMA network on Jan.1, 2022 -- affecting about 9 million Boost Mobile and Ting Mobile prepaid wireless customers -- and facing some upcoming carriage negotiations with Sinclair Broadcast Group’s RSNs. 

Also Read: Sinclair RSNs Face 'Tumultuous' Period, Analyst Says

Asked about the effect of programmers putting once exclusive linear content like NFL Football and other programming on streaming services, Ergen, who also said  cable network affiliate fees should go down by 50%, said it made it tough for small broadcasters to survive.

“I’m very empathetic to broadcasters, particularly local broadcasters,” Ergen said. “A lot of them started as small businesses and have grown their business. They’re not only having to deal with legacy linear TV, but they are having to compete against their big owners. I think they have to come up with strategic solutions to reinvent themselves. We’d like to work with them to do that. But retrans has peaked.”

Also Read: Satellite TV: Five Years, That's All You've Got

Ergen pointed out that Dish was one of the first distributors to say that regional sports was on its way out “and two or three years later people figured that out. Retrans has just peaked.”

Ergen has predicted the demise of retrans in the past, but his comments, coming as more and more programmers are relying on direct-to-consumer offerings, it could finally come true. 

More and more programmers are going direct-to-consumer, including broadcasters like ViacomCBS with Paramount Plus and NBC with Peacock. As more and more customers cut the pay TV cord, that has led to lighter retrans fees. Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence has said it expects retrans fees to rise just 2% in 2021.   At the same time, there are many operators that are bracing for big increases in retrans fees over the next few years to help broadcasters pay for the recently signed NFL rights deal, which goes into effect in 2023. 

Ergen next commented on Dish’s ongoing dispute with T-Mobile, regarding the wireless  carrier’s decision to discontinue its CDMA network by the end of the year. https://www.nexttv.com/blogs/dish-wireless-pushes-forward Dish’s prepaid business -- Boost Mobile and Ting Mobile -- rely on that network to deliver service and the company has warned that it would have to purchase millions of new handsets for those customers once the transition is made. T-Mobile has said the impact would be on less than 1 million of Dish’s 9 million prepaid wireless customers.

Ergen said  the carrier's numbers were “way low” and called its claim that the government was requiring them to shutter the network false. Ergen later likened T-Mobile to Seuss’ Grinch, noting that at the beginning of the story, the Grinch’s heart was three-sizes too small.

“Once they got their merger done, they looked like every other big company,” Ergen said, adding that like the Grinch, who stole all the toys from the children of Whoville’s (even little Cindy Lou Who’s), T-Mobile was snatching phones out of economically distressed customers’ hands. 

"The Un-carrier has become the Un-caring Carrier, and that’s a shame” Ergen said, riffing on T-Mobile’s marketing tag line. He hoped that like in the Seuss story, T-Mobile will see the light and reconsider the CDMA shutdown. 

Ergen said he had been reading The Grinch to his granddaughter, adding that during that time he saw the Grinch in a different color.  “Instead of green, I kept seeing him in magenta,” Ergen said. “I kept seeing a magenta Grinch.” 

T-Mobile’s logo is magenta.

Three Capitol Broadcasting stations have gone dark on Dish in a retrans dispute the blame for which each is laying at the other's feet.

In a press release, Dish said that Capitol had ignored its request for an extension and left its customers in the dark.

The stations at issue are NBC affiliate WRAL-TV and Fox affiliate WRAZ-TV, both Raleigh-Durham, and independent WILM-TV Wilmington.

Also Read: Verizon Warns Viewers Hearst Signals Could Come Down

“We don't understand why Capitol Broadcasting has chosen to put our customers in the middle of these negotiations,” said Melisa Boddie, programming VP for Dish. “We offered an extension to keep these stations up for customers while negotiations continued, but Capitol never responded. Instead, they ignored our offer and forced a blackout of three North Carolina TV stations.”

She said Dish remains open to working on a fair, long-term deal.

Capitol saw it quite differently, as WRAL pointed out on its website.

"WRAL and FOX 50 [WRAZ] have fallen victim to the same fate as hundreds of other local TV stations across the country, removed by Dish after they refuse to reach a fair agreement to carry our stations," it said in an "important message" on its website (https://www.wral.com/wral-DISH-FOX50-keep-my-local-stations/16921951/.

"Welcome to the modern-day David vs. Goliath," Capitol said. "We are one of the few small, locally owned broadcasters left in the country. As the broadcasting business changes, we're fighting for our livelihood and our ability to bring you the exceptional news and programming you expect."

Capitol concedes the issue is the price for its signals. "We are choosing to not be bullied into essentially giving away our programming to a company that resells it so they can make millions," it said. "We do not think it is right."

As to Capitol never responding to a Dish offer, the company said Wednesday (Dec. 30) that was not the case, adding this to the WGAL web site story on the issue: "That is simply not true. A negotiation requires both parties to participate fully, and, at this point, Capitol has not yet received a return proposal from DISH to our last proposal that was submitted before this dispute began."

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) has written FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to stick up for Gray Television's WWSB-TV Sarasota, Florida, in a retrans fight with Frontier Cable. 

Citing a failure to reach a retransmission agreement with Frontier, WWSB-TV used some in-house news reporting last week to relay that it had been pulled from the cable system Friday (Dec. 18) after WWSB offered to keep the signal on at current terms while they continued to negotiate.

In the WWSB reports, VP and GM Jeff Benninghoff said: “I am absolutely stunned. In all my 27 years in local media, I have never even heard of a cable operator just dropping a station when it was offered a no-strings-attached extension to work things out."

Also Read: Comcast, Hearst Reach Retrans Deal

Actually, cable operators have been known not to agree to extending the same terms beyond a contract's expiration when they are asking for more money.

Robert Folliard, III, SVP of government relations for Gray, said that the broadcaster filed a good-faith complaint against Frontier Dec. 18 after it dropped Gray in three markets "despite Gray granting Frontier an extension until December 31, 2020 to give the parties time to continue to negotiate an agreement."

The complaint asserted that Frontier appeared never to have intended to carry the stations after the contract expired Dec. 18. "Instead, it just strung Gray along for weeks making us believe progress was being made until informing Gray with less than an hour to go that Frontier’s negotiator actually had no authority to enter into an agreement on the terms she had most recently offered to us and in fact she could not agree to terms along the lines of any of the proposals she had made over the last several weeks."

If the lead negotiator had no power to negotiate, Frontier could hardly be negotiating in good faith, which would violate FCC rules.

Frontier saw it differently.

"Until our contract with the programmer expired, Frontier worked hard to negotiate a fair deal. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach an agreement," said Javier Mendoza, VP of corporate communications and external affairs for Frontier. "No provider is immune from network negotiations and programming removals; and other providers also face the continual need to reassess their channel and content lineup."

But Buchanan expressed concerns about the Florida station's absence from the lineup. 

In a letter Tuesday (Dec. 22), Buchanan said that he was concerned about the "blackout" of the local TV station and the importation of ABC affiliate WFTS Tampa, denying his constituents access to "exclusive local news focusing on Sarasota and surrounding area."

Buchanan also tweeted about the letter, saying: "Our community depends on access to local news for important information that impacts their daily lives. That's why I just wrote to the chairman of the FCC expressing my concern at the sudden blackout of a local TV news station here in Sarasota."

He urged the FCC to "take any appropriate action to help ensure that Frontier acts in the public interest and that Gray Television receives fair and equitable treatment..."

Chairman Pai has avoided getting into the middle of retrans disputes, suggesting the marketplace was the better arbiter.

Comcast said it has quietly reached a retransmission consent agreement with Hearst TV stations across the country, including continued carriage of about 35 out-of-market stations in 38 markets that were originally expected to be dropped.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

The Hearst TV stations were set to expire on Dec. 31 and include affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS, The CW and My Network TV. In addition, Comcast had expected to drop about 35 stations in 38 markets on Dec, 22 that were being offered to Comcast customers out of market. Now those channels will continue to be carried.

“We have come to an agreement with Hearst for the in-market stations and for the out-of-market stations – this agreement allows us to offer the out-of-market stations in the same manner as we have in the past,” Comcast said in an email message. “As a result, these stations will remain on our channel lineup, and we are notifying customers about this update.” 

The rise in retransmission fees has more than compensated for the COVID-19 hit on TV station revenue, at least in the early months of the pandemic. That is according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. The report also found that ad revenue for network news--ABC, CBS, and NBC--were actually up in 2Q 2020, while cable news revenue held steady, though only thanks to Fox, whose large increases covered declines at CNN and MSNBC.

The broadcast TV study was based on second-quarter ad revenue (the quarter ending June 30, 2020) for Sinclair, Tegna, Nexstar*, Gray and Scripps, compared to second quarter 2019 revenue. The overall report was based on financial data from the Securities and Exchange Commission for publicly traded companies, and data from Kantar.

While the stories of individual stations undoubtedly vary, Pew found that while ad revenue was down for 2Q 2020 from 2019, the increase in retransmission consent fees "more than made up for it."

The study said that across those five TV station group operators, which together have over 600 TV stations, retrans fees were up "sharply" in 2Q 2020, by 37% or a total $87.3 million in median revenue, more than covering the median ad revenue decline of 24% to $67.9 million. Sinclair represented the biggest boost in fees, a whopping 175%, with Scripps second at 55% and Tegna getting the median position at 37%.

The ad total for the three network nightly newscasts was up 11% in 2Q 2020 over the comparable 2019 quarter, with ABC pulling most of the weight, up a whopping 21% to NBC's 7% and CBS's 3%.

For the cable news outlets studied, total ad revenue was up 2% for the quarter, year over year, to $422 million, but Fox News was doing the heavy lifting to lift the average. Driven by big ratings gains, Fox news had its biggest Q2 year-over-year revenue increase in more than a decade, up 41%, while CNN ad revenue fell 14% and MSNBC 27%, despite higher ratings for both in the quarter, with CNN more than doubling its prime time audience over 2019.

*Because Pew is comparing revenues to second quarter 2019, before Nexstar's September 2019 merger with Tribune, former Tribune station revenues have been backed out of the Nexstar 2020 numbers so it is an apples-to-apples comparison.

ViacomCBS has struck its first major carriage deal since completing its merger in December, a sweeping agreement with Comcast that spans retransmission consent of its owned and operated stations, carriage of a handful of cable networks and a pledge to integrate the CBS All Access streaming app on the cable operator’s X1 set-tops.

The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, includes retrans for 23 CBS O&Os and carriage of cable networks Showtime, CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel and Pop TV. In addition, Comcast said the CBS All Access app will be available on its X1 and Flex platforms later this year, and it will provide authenticated streaming of the CBS broadcast network and CBS Sports Network for the first time.

“We are very pleased to have reached this agreement to continue to bring CBS’ industry-leading entertainment, sports and news content from the CBS Television Network, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, Pop TV and CBS Sports Network to millions of Xfinity customers, and delighted to offer these customers access via X1 and Flex to CBS All Access for the first time,” ViacomCBS president U.S. Networks Distribution Ray Hopkins said in a press release. “We look forward to discussing the entire ViacomCBS portfolio with Comcast in the future.”

CBS-owned stations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, as well as CBS-owned The CW affiliates in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tampa, Seattle, Detroit, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, will continue to be distributed to Xfinity customers.

In addition, two MyNetwork affiliates will be available in Boston and Miami and the CBS-owned independent station will be available in New York.

“ViacomCBS has been a great partner, and we are very pleased to have reached this agreement to provide Xfinity X1 and Flex customers with more access to their content across multiple platforms,” said Comcast Cable SVP video and entertainment Rebecca Heap in a press release. 

In a research note, Evercore ISI media analyst Vijay Jayant said that because the deal was reached about five months before it was due, he believes it was likely favorable to CBS. He noted that it last negotiated a retrans deal with Comcast about a decade ago, and likely it had been receiving rates below the current market. 

And though the carriage deal does not include legacy Viacom networks like MTV and Comedy Central, Jayant thinks one of the main objectives of the current agreement is to align the expiration schedules between the CBS and Viacom assets.

"We now think it likely that ViacomCBS will be able to renegotiate all networks co-terminus when the new agreement expires," Jayant wrote. "This dynamic should remove downside risk associated with the next Viacom / Comcast carriage renewal."

The FCC has voted unanimously to propose eliminating the requirement that cable operators provide their subs at least 30 days notice of a TV station channel coming off their systems, changing it to notice "as soon as possible" given that retrans deals are often struck in the 11th hour.

It must still collect comment on the proposal and vote on a final order, but that will almost certainly happen.

Under the FCC's current rules cable ops have to provide that 30-day notice before a channel comes off if that change "is within the provider's control."

The problem is that most disputes wind up being resolved in that 30-day window, so the notifications wind up being for takedowns that never happen. "[W]e don't want consumers to be inundated by premature and inaccurate notices about channel changes that never come to pass," FCC chair Ajit Pai said last month in announcing the vote.

The item also seeks comment on whether "to require that notice of rate or service
changes—regardless of whether those changes are due to failed carriage negotiations be
provided by cable operators to LFAs (Local Franchising Authorities) only if required by an LFA."

"To be truly meaningful, notice must be relevant, timely, and actionable," said commissioner Brendan Carr. "And, most of all, accurate. If our subscriber notice requirements for cable service changes are not providing customers with meaningful information, then the notices may be doing more harm than good."

Commissioner Geoffrey Starks supported the item, but with some reservation.

"I firmly believe that transparency is key and our regulators should communicate early and often with customers about any changes to their rates or service," he said. "This NPRM proposes to amend our statutorily mandated cable consumer protection rules in a way that, I fear, could result in less information being shared with consumers and more unwelcome surprises in the form of blacked out channels and lost service."

But he said that after the chairman agreed to add questions about what consumer harm could stem from noticing a blackout after it had already begun and how notices should be conveyed, among others, he would vote for the item and review the record that develops.

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly called it an important update up the FCC's rules, which has become a monthly ritual. He said the FCC needed to proceed judiciously given that even the slightest change can impact the bargaining power of one side or the other. But he also said there was a need for wholesale reform given the existential threat traditional broadcasters and MVPDs from "virtually unregulated over-the-top and streaming video providers."

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the purpose behind the 30-day advance notice rule is clear--viewers need notice--but it needs to work in the real world. She said it makes sense to take a fresh look, but also not forget to put consumer interests first. She applauded the removal of tentative conclusions and added questions she asked for, and so she, too, supported the item.

Pai said that most retrans disputes are resolved shortly before such deadlines and the FCC rules "simply don't reflect that reality."

"We commend the FCC's unanimous vote launching this proceeding. Consumers would be ill-served by requiring operators to send confusing and unnecessary notices about potential channel line-up changes, where parties are engaged in active negotiations at the end of a contract term," said NCTA-the Internet & Television Association. As we have seen in the marketplace, the vast majority of such negotiations end successfully without any direct consumer impact. We look forward to working with the FCC to bring this bipartisan proposal to a swift conclusion."

Dish Network said it has reached a multi-year carriage deal with Fox Corp., for the programmer’s owned and operated TV stations, and sports channels FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, Fox Soccer Plus and Fox Deportes.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We appreciate our customers’ patience as we worked to reach a long-term agreement that restores the Fox networks and local broadcast stations,” Dish said in a statement.

The Fox channels went dark to Dish customers on Sept. 26 after the two could not reach an agreement. Dish claimed that Fox was demanding double-digit pricing increases while Fox claimed the satellite TV service provider was using the blackout as a negotiating ploy. In the end the two reached a compromise.

Fox confirmed the agreement in a statement.

“We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Dish and Sling, and they are immediately restoring their subscribers’ access to the Fox networks and television stations,” Fox said in its statement. “We are grateful to our viewers for their patience during this disruption.” 

The news in our industry seems to continue at a healthy pace, but we’ve started to see the disputes between the local “off-airs” (CBS, NBC, etc.) and the companies that deliver (retransmit) these services, such as Charter Communications and DirecTV, dominate the headlines. It seems like every week there is a different cable or satellite company being asked to pay more and more in order to keep the local channels live to their subscribers. The burning question is why has this been turned into a battleground where the biggest loser would appear to be the consumer.

One of the things that most people in our industry like is a joined-up strategy where we can all feel as though we are rowing the boat in the same direction. The reality is that the media networks and cable companies are rowing in different directions, causing the boat to cruise headlong into an iceberg at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, some of the cable and network executives are on the top deck rearranging the chairs.

I have been contemplating this ever-changing situation for years, and I feel that every time I think I have an answer a new curveball is thrown into the arena. Ten years ago it would cost a cable company next to nothing to retransmit CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. to their subscribers. In fact, it was a highly profitable part of their business.

Ever-Changing Reasons

The reasons networks have thrown out for each massive increase on the cost of these “free-to-air channels” represent a long and growing list. (And is it just me, or do we think we should change the name because “free to air” is not a very good adjective to describe this group of channels anymore? How about a change to most expensive to air locals that are not really local? OK, I guess it does not have the same ring to it.)

Rather than go through every single reason that has been given, let’s highlight just a few that I am not sure about:

• The cost of making programming has gone up.
• Sports rights are costing so much, we have to pass on that cost.
• Advertising revenue has gone down.
• Cost of sports events has gone up again.
• Cost of sports events has gone up again and I have nobody that wants to advertise and sports rights have gone up.
• Blah, blah, blah.

Let’s start with No. 1. Seriously? It now costs more money to make reality TV shows than it costs to make award winning documentaries, dramas, comedies et al.?

The cost of making reality TV is very low compared to the other genres and yet we are seeing more and more reality TV on during primetime than ever before. Before y’all think I hate reality TV, OK I do, but my personal viewing preferences have nothing do with it.

Then, there’s No. 2: Sports rights are too much. For sure, there was a period when you could watch a ton of sports on the local channels that was relevant to you. For many, it was the only way they would be able to watch their baseball or basketball or hockey teams, but that world changed a long time ago and the regional sports networks have done a good job of vacuuming up as many of these rights as possible.

That leaves national sports rights, and the vast majority of sports except for golf are cable networks, not the locals, so how does the cost of sporting events that you don’t show mean an increase? So, we’re going to see a decrease, right? Nope — and you forgot No. 3.

I thought I had that covered in the above, but probably not — so here we go. If you are not making programming that companies want to advertise on and then you change your strategy to offer consumers ways to watch your content without advertising, what message is being sent? Then, just to add some confusion, some of the broadcasters are now owned by the very cable/satellite companies that they were constantly at war with. Maybe we will see these companies reduce the prices of the cable package.

Big Tech Lurks

It is not outside the realm of possibility that all of this, while painful for the average consumer, is like music to the ears of the big tech companies that are lurking in the shadows. When the biggest two tech boys decide enough carnage has taken place and that there is an opportunity to clean up, what will TV look like? Will it follow the same pattern and we are destined to just pay a different piper, or will a revolution take place?

I hope it is an evolution, and we can get back to watching content on our screens and the consumer can pay a fair price for a product.

I do not have a crystal ball on this subject, but if a tech company looks at the goings on and believes that there is a way to build an antenna into a set top box or phone or modem, where does the argument of the networks then go? The cable companies will be out of business and the tech companies will not be burdened with highly expensive local “free off-airs.” Instead, they will be free again, and as the networks will continue to believe that they can build apps better than everyone else, they will be giving us the option to buy their flavor of OTT.

This could be a really interesting few years and once again the loser is the average Joe and Joanna that just wants to watch something on any device where it will be on and not blacked out. Television will survive and grow, and consumers are likely to find ways of getting this content when they want it, how they want it — and maybe even at a fair price.

Stuart Smitherman is president and co-founder of Vivicast Media, which licenses content to MVPDs.

Tribune Media is warning Charter Communications customers in 24 markets that they may lose access to broadcast programming if a new retransmission consent deal isn’t reached, just one of several retrans related blackouts that could occur in the New Year.

Tribune’s retrans deal with Charter expires at 12:01 am on Jan. 1. About 33 stations are affected in markets including New York (WPIX) and Los Angeles (KTLA). Tribune estimated that more than 6 million customers will be affected. The blackout would also include Tribune’s cable channel WGN America. Spectrum customers could lose programming like the National Football League playoffs and NCAA basketball.

“The NFL playoffs begin Jan. 5 and we want football fans in our markets to be able to watch these games and root for their favorite teams—we want to reach an agreement with Spectrum,” said Gary Weitman, Tribune Media’s senior vice president for corporate relations, in a statement. “We’ve offered Spectrum fair market rates for our top-rated local news, live sports and high-quality entertainment programming, and similarly fair rates for our cable network, WGN America. Spectrum has refused our offer.”

Tribune has established websites for each of its affected television stations and for WGN America where Spectrum customers can obtain more information.

“We are only a few days away from the deadline to reach an agreement with Spectrum, just as we have done with every one of our other cable, satellite and telco distributors,” Weitman continued. “We felt that now was the time to begin telling Spectrum subscribers that they may lose access to our stations and the programming they provide.”

In a statement Charter said it continues to “negotiate with Tribune and hopes to reach a fair agreement.”

Nexstar Media, which has proposed to purchase Tribune in a deal valued at $6.4 billion, is threatening a blackout of small independent operator TDS Communications in several small markets in Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Nevada. TDS claims Nexstar is demanding a 175% increase in retrans rates. Its deal expires on Dec. 31.

The end of the year is a traditional deadline date for retrans deals, and several other broadcasters have issued warnings about potential blackouts. The period, rife with college bowl games, NFL playoffs and other live sporting events, is a crucial ratings period as well as an incentive for distributors to reach deals quickly to avoid customer defections.

Earlier this week Disney, parent of the ABC broadcast network and cable sports channel ESPN, warned Verizon Fios customer they may lose access to that programming in the absence of a retrans deal by midnight Jan. 1. Mediacom Communications is faced with a Dec. 31 deadline for 10 Tegna stations in Louisville, Ky. (WHAS-ABC); Macon, Ga. (WMAZ CBS and WMAZ-D2 ); Minneapolis-St. Paul (KARE-NBC); New Orleans (WWL-CBS and WUPL-MyNetwork); WVEC ABC Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Va. (WVEC-ABC); Phoenix (KPNX-NBC); St. Louis (KSDK-NBC; and Tucson (KMSB-FOX).

Dish Network temporarily avoided the blackout of 70 stations in 48 markets across the country Thursday, after broadcaster Media General granted it an extension while it tries to hammer out a long-term deal.

Media General stations in markets like San Francisco/Oakland (KRON-MyNetworkTV); Colorado Springs (KXRM-Fox); Portland (KOIN-CBS); Nashville, Tenn. (WKRN-ABC); Norfolk, Va. (WAVY-NBC); and Providence, RI (WPRI-CBS) were set to go dark at 7 p.m. on March 31. In a statement on their station websites, Media General said the stations would remain available to Dish through the extension period. Previously, Media General had said it had given Dish six weeks of extensions but couldn’t work out a deal.

“Media General has granted Dish another short term extension and continues to work hard to reach a deal, so our viewers will not lose access to their favorite news, sports, entertainment, and other local programming,” the company said.

In a sign that its retransmission talks with Comcast's NBCUniversal networks aren’t going as smoothly it would like, Dish Network said it has filed a lawsuit against the programmer, alleging breach of contract.

In a statement, Dish said NBC’s public statements over the past 24 hours are in violation of its agreement with the programmer, prompting the suit.

"Dish has successfully negotiated agreements representing numerous networks in recent months that benefit all parties, including our viewers,” Dish said in a statement. “Dish’s goal is to reach a mutually beneficial deal with NBC.”

Dish said it is also seeking arbitration, which it says would prevent NBC from pulling its signal while negotiations were ongoing.

"Under the conditions imposed by the FCC and Department of Justice in approving the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger, NBC is forbidden from blacking out its networks if a pay-TV provider chooses, in its sole discretion, to exercise its right for binding arbitration,” Dish said in a statement. “Regulators implemented these conditions to prevent Comcast and NBC from harming consumers and competition.”

"In the event of arbitration, affected programming would remain available during that process, and for the foreseeable future," Dish continued.

NBC has been running ads telling Dish customers that they could lose access to NBC programming if a carriage deal isn’t reached by the contract deadline of March 20. The negotiations involve 10 NBC and 16 Telemundo owned and operated stations as well as cable networks including USA, Syfy, Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC. 

 “Should Dish proceed with arbitration we will of course participate in the process, and look forward to receiving the fair market value for our portfolio of network,” NBCUniversal said through a spokesperson.

CBS chairman and CEO Les Moonves isn’t worried that fears over lower pay TV affiliate fees and continued consolidation of distributors could affect retransmission growth for his broadcast network, adding that fees are expected to continue to grow at a healthy pace.

On a conference call with analysts to discuss fourth-quarter results, Moonves said retransmission-consent fees grew more than 40% at CBS in the fourth quarter. He estimated that total retrans revenue is on track to grow to $1 billion in 2016, a year earlier than previously expected, and double to $2 billion in 2020.

“Everybody knows what the ballgame is with retrans,” Moonves said on the call, adding that its last negotiation with Cablevision Systems was “no muss, no fuss.”

“Retrans is stronger than ever,” Moonves continued. “Every deal is larger than the one before. The tone hasn’t changed.”    

Scripps and Time Warner Cable have quietly struck a multiyear retransmission-consent agreement for stations representing more than 3 million households in 14 markets, a source familiar with the deal said.

The agreement also covers some Bright House Networkscable systems for which TWC handles retrans negotiations.

The affected markets are Bakersfield, Calif[ Cleveland; Cincinnati; Denver; Detroit; Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisc.; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Nashville, Tenn.; Omaha, Neb.; San Diego; and Tampa, Fla.

The agreement comes as Charter Commuications and Time Warner Cable are trying to secure regulatory approval of their proposed merger.

Cox Communications, which had a relatively uneventful New Year on the retransmission consent front, stands to lose access to Nexstar Broadcasting Group stations in several key markets – including Las Vegas and Phoenix – if it can’t hammer out a deal with the broadcaster by Jan. 29.

Nexstar did not reveal which markets were affected, but a check of its station websites revealed that the stations in question were located in Las Vegas; Phoenix; Baton Rouge, La; Lafayette, La.; Roanoke, Va.; Panama City, Fla.; Ft. Smith/Fayetteville, Ark.; Joplin, Mo.; and Springfield, Mo. Those areas could go dark at 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 29 unless a deal is reached. The stations include affiliates of the four major broadcast networks – NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC – which could mean that Cox customers in Las Vegas (which includes CBS affiliate KLAS-TV) and Springfield, Mo. (home of CBS affiliate KOLR); may miss the Feb., 7 broadcast of Super Bowl 50 if a deal is not reached.

Nexstar, the second largest station group in the country, said in a statement that it has been in negotiations with Cox for more than five months and continues to try to work out a deal.

The dispute comes just after Cox ended 2015 with most of its deals in hand. The Nexstar dispute comes at a time when the Federal Communications Commission is mulling whether to apply stricter oversight of retransmission consent agreements. It also comes as Nexstar attempts to purchase broadcaster Media General in a $4.7 billion deal that will bring it closer to the federal station ownership cap of 39%.

(UPDATE, JAN. 27: The $4.6 billion Nexstar-Media General deal is a go after Meredith Corp. withdrew its offer for Media General.)

In a statement, Cox said the dispute is over higher fees.

"Cox is committed to keeping our customers connected to what they care about most and ensuring they receive the most value from any of our services,” Cox said in the statement. “Nexstar Broadcasting Group is threatening to withhold its signals unless Cox agrees to pay three times the current rate. Cox has always been willing to continue providing significant compensation, but we feel three times the current rate is unreasonable. We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this matter quickly.”

Nexstar countered that Cox and other cable and satellite distributors pay as much as $8 per subscriber per month for ESPN and $1.65 for TNT. The station group said broadcast stations and station groups generate about 35% of household viewing, but receive an average of about 12% of the total distribution revenue from cable, satellite and telecom providers.

Nexstar added that it has reached agreements with hundreds of cable and satellite subscribers and has not had a material service interruption since 2005.

“Nexstar will continue negotiating with Cox to try and reach a fair agreement to allow viewers to continue receiving its programming on an uninterrupted basis,” the company said in a statement.

While there is still a week to go before the deadline and deals like this usually get decided in the final minutes, Nexstar added it will continue to apply the heat to the cable company if a deal isn’t reached by Jan. 29.

“Nexstar remains hopeful that a resolution can be reached before the Jan. 29 deadline, but should Cox fail to come to terms with Nexstar, Nexstar intends to actively educate consumers in affected markets on how they can continue to receive their favorite network programming, in-depth local news, other content and programming relevant to their communities, and critical updates in times of emergencies,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

Dish Network  and Tegna stations across the country appear to be gearing up for a retransmission consent battle, with the satellite giant pressing the broadcaster for an extension to their existing agreement as they race to hammer out a permanent deal by the Sept. 30 deadline.

Tegna (formerly Gannett) has 51 stations in 39 markets in Dish territory and began warning customers through their respective websites that a blackout could be coming if the parties don’t reach an agreement. The affected stations include Tegna's stations like KING-TV (NBC) and KONG-TV (Independent) in Seattle;  WFAA-TV (ABC) in Dallas; KUSA-TV (NBC) in Denver; and WUSA-TV (CBS) in Washington, D.C.

Both parties say they have been working toward a deal but recetly appear to have hit a snag in their talks.

 “Unfortunately, so far Dish has refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement with us – even though the terms being offered are similar to those which allowed us to reach deals with these other providers,” Tegna’s Seattle stations KING-TV and KONG-TV said on their websites.  “If a deal is not reached by [7 p.m. ET]. on Sept. 30, Dish subscribers could lose access to KING and KONG.” Tegna added that it has never had a blackout with a major distributor and has recently reached several retrans renewal deals with top cable and .telco TV companies.

In a statement, Tegna appeared open to forging a deal before the deadline.

"The interests of Dish subscribers and our viewers are best served through a long-term contract for carriage of our local stations," Tegna said in the statement. "If both parties remain 100% focused on productive, market-based negotiations there is no reason a deal cannot be reached before the contract expires. Tegna remains entirely committed to that goal."

If the stations go dark it will be the second major blackout Dish has endured this year. In August, Dish warned that 129 stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group could go dark if a deal wasn’t reached by Aug. 15. Although Dish received a short-term extension, the Sinclair stations did go dark for about a day before they were able to reach an agreement and make them available to the satellite giant’s customers.

In a statement, Dish urged Tegna to grant an extension to the deal, offering a retroactive “true-up” for  new rates.

"Since we offered to retroactively true them up when new rates were agreed upon, Tegna has nothing to lose and consumers have everything to gain from an extension of our existing contract that would allow negotiations to continue," Dish senior vice president of Programming Warren Schlichting in a statement. "Instead, Tegna has not accepted our offer and has chosen to use consumers to gain leverage for the economic benefit of Tegna, while potentially causing substantial harm and disruption to the lives of those very same consumers who ultimately will bear the brunt of the unfair price increases sought by Tegna."

Dish and Tegna have been making steady progress in their recent negotiations, and Dish said it  was hopeful that a mutual agreement would be reached.

"Dish has successfully negotiated agreements representing hundreds of stations in recent months that benefit all parties, including our viewers," added Schlichting ni his statement. "We are unsure why Tegna decided to involve customers in the contract negotiation process at a point when there is still time for the two parties to reach a mutually beneficial deal."

Other providers are also facing Sept. 30 retrans deadlines – AT&T U-Verse with Tribune Media stations and DirecTV with Media General in several markets.

About a day after its 129 broadcast stations went dark and mere hours after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler called for an emergency meeting to reach an end to their dispute, Dish Network and Sinclair Broadcast Group said they have reached an agreement and that restoration of the Sinclair signals to Dish subscribers is underway.

In a statement, Dish and Sinclair said they have agreed to a short-term extension on their existing retrans agreement as they finalize negotiations. The parties say they have reached an agreement in principal for the stations in 79 markets across the country.

“We are grateful for the FCC’s work on behalf of consumers to actively broker a productive path forward,” said Jeff Blum, Dish senior vice president and deputy general counsel in a statement.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Sinclair pulled its signals on Aug. 25, after a short extension expired and the two parties could not reach an agreement. Dish had claimed it had come to an agreement on pricing for Sinclair’s stations, but that the broadcaster was demanding the satellite giant negotiate carriage for an unnamed cable channel Sinclair hoped to own. Dish also ad filed a complaint with the FCC, claiming Sinclair was not negotiating in good faith. As part of its new deal, Dish is asking the FCC to stay action on the complaint as its long-term agreement is being finalized.

“On behalf of more than 5 million consumers nationwide, I am pleased Dish and Sinclair have agreed to end one of the largest blackouts in history and extend their negotiations.  The FCC will remain vigilant while the negotiations continue,” said Wheeler on news of the news.

The chairman also trumpeted the tentative agreement and the FCC's role in pressing for resolution. "Today the most extensive retransmission blackout in history ended," he Tweeted, followed by: "The FCC will remain vigilant. Use of the public airwaves is a public trust."

"We are pleased to see that five million Dish subscribers are again able to access their local news and programming and most-watched network entertainment and live sporting events with the agreement reached this evening by Sinclair and Dish," said Rob Kenny of TVFreedom.org, a broadcaster-backed advocate for the retrans system. "Local TV newscasts, severe weather updates and emergency alerts and warnings are important to viewers and something they value and rely on daily."

Dish Network has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, claiming that Sinclair Broadcast Group has refused to negotiate a retransmission consent agreement in good faith , threatening to darken 153 stations in 79 markets at 11:59 p.m. tonight.

Dish claims that Sinclair, one of the largest station owners in the country, is refusing to negotiate with the satellite giant unless it is allowed to include 32 stations in its markets it doesn’t own. Dish says that is a direct violation of the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014, and is asking the FCC to intervene.

Dish said negotiations with Sinclair had been going smoothly and it had even offered a short-term extension including a retroactive “true-up ” when new rates were agreed upon, and would preserve the ability of Dish customers to access the Sinclair local stations while negotiations continued. The “true-up” would ensure that Sinclair was made whole at the new rates for the period of the contract extension.

Instead of taking the offer, Sinclair demanded that it be allowed to negotiate on behalf of the other 32 stations, according to Dish.

“We’re asking the FCC to act on behalf of consumers to bring Sinclair back in line with the law,” said Dish senior vice president and deputy counsel Jeff Blum n a statement. “Sinclair’s ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ posture is in direct violation of federal regulations – they have offered a single path and are threatening that any deviation from that path will lead to a consumer blackout.”

Sinclair officials were not immediately available for comment, but the company said during its second quarter earnings call earlier this month that it was in negotiations with Dish. About 75% of its retrans agreements are due in the next 12 months, which chief operating officer David Ay said at the time gives the broadcaster an “opportunity to reset the fees we receive under all of these deals.”

“Since we offered to retroactively true them up when new rates were agreed upon, Sinclair had nothing to lose and consumers had everything to gain from an extension of our existing contract that would allow negotiations to continue,” Blum added. “Instead, Sinclair has rejected our offer and has chosen to use innocent consumers as pawns to gain leverage for the economic benefit of Sinclair, while causing substantial harm and disruption to the lives of those very same consumers who ultimately will bear the brunt of the unfair price increases sought by Sinclair.”

Dish is asking the FCC to immediately grant preliminary injunctive relief while the Commission considers the complaint, and to require Sinclair to negotiate in good faith for the stations for which it has control under FCC rules.

The formal complaint is here:

The American Television Alliance, whose members include Dish, fired off a press relaase Saturday hammering Sinclair:

“This is almost as bad as thieves looting a store before the police arrive," said ATVA spokesman Trent Duffy. "This week, the FCC Chairman indicated the need to take measures to protect consumers against this kind of abusive behavior, but with their backs against the wall, it appears that broadcasters are trying to squeeze every penny out of the system while they still can.  This outrageous and unprecedented blackout should not happen.”  

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated an order eliminating broadcast exclusivity rules that would allow cable operators to import network or

syndicated programming from out-of-market stations, including when they can't strike retrans deals with in-market stations with that same programming.

he also launched a congressionally-mandated review of good faith negotiations that will almost certainly include whether blackouts should be part of that.

An FCC spokesperson was not available for comment on the timing of a response to the Dish petition.

Media General stations in 14 markets went dark to Mediacom Communications customers Tuesday night in a retransmission consent dispute, including three Fox stations just prior to the start of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.

Three Fox stations – WVBT in Norfolk, Va.; WTHI in Terre Haute, Ind.; and KTMJ in Topeka, Kans. – in Mediacom territory went dark just as the All-Star Game, live from Great American Ballpark (pictured) in Cincinnati, was beginning, according to Mediacom.  

Other stations that went dark in the dispute, according to Mediacom, are: KWQC (NBC) in Davenport, Iowa/Rock Island-Moline, Ill.; KIMT(CBS/MNT) in Mason City, Iowa; KELO (CBS/MNT) in Sioux Falls, S.D.; WANE (CBS) in Fort Wayne, Ind.; WAVY (NBC) in Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Va.; WTHI (CBS) in Terre Haute, Ind.; WKRN (ABC) in Nashville, Tenn.; KSNT (NBC) in Topeka, Kans.; KSNW (NBC) in Wichita-Hutchison, Kans.; WIAT (CBS) in Birmingham, Ala.; WOTV (ABC) and WOOD (NBC) in Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Mich.; WBAY (ABC) in Green Bay-Appleton, Wis.; WFNA (CW) in Mobile, Ala./Pensacola, Fla.; and KRON (MNT) in San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Calif..

As is usual in retrans disputes, money is at the center of the impasse. In a letter to customers July 15, Mediacom Lincoln region vice president Tom Curtis said that in his market, which includes NBC affiliate KWQC, in negotiating a new three-year pact, the station demanded the operator pay more than double the rate it had paid in the past.

“Not only was Media General demanding more than double the money, the price they set for KWQC was significantly more than any other broadcast station we carry,” Curtis said in the letter. “If we agreed to Media General’s demands, KWQC would have become the most expensive broadcast channel in all of the 1,500 communities that Mediacom serves across 22 states.  Further, other broadcasters would follow and begin demanding to be paid the same as Media General, driving up costs for other channels on your lineup.”

On its website, KWQC said that it has hoped it would be able to reach a deal with Mediacom, as it has with several other multichannel video programming distributors in the past.  

“Please know that we have tried hard to reach an agreement with Mediacom, so that our viewers would not have to miss any of our around-the-clock reporting of news, traffic, weather emergencies, public service announcements, and favorite local and national programming,” KWQC said on its website. “We are disappointed in the outcome of our negotiations, especially since we have successfully reached deals with every major cable, satellite and telecommunications company that recognizes our fair market value. Without fair and equitable treatment, local TV stations will not be able to continue to provide top quality news, sports, entertainment, and other local programming that is most important to you.”

Media General purchased the stations from in two separate deals in 2013 with Young Broadcasting  and in 2014 with LIN Media.  According to Mediacom, this is the second time the stations have gone dark – in 2011 LIN blacked out many of the same stations in a separate retrans dispute for more than a month. Mediacom claims that since 2008, Media General and its predecessor companies Young and LIN have blacked out more than 75 stations.

The latest dispute comes about a week after Mediacom chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso asked the Federal Communications Commission to limit blackouts during retrans disputes.

Gray TV stations in Florida, Nebraska and Kansas returned to Cox Communications subscribers in those areas Sunday afternoon.

Cox Communications has reached an agreement with Gray TV for retransmission consent of their channels to our lineup,” Cox said in a statement. “ We regret the recent disruption in service and appreciate our customers' patience and support as we sought to reach an agreement reasonable to our business and our customers.”

Gray stations WECP (CBS) in Panama, Fla., WOWT (NBC) in Omaha, Neb., KAKE (ABC) in Wichita, Kan., and WIBW (CBS) in Topeka went dark to Cox customers on Jan. 6 after the parties failed to reach a retransmission consent agreement.The deal originally was scheduled to expire on Jan.1.

In a statement on its website at 1:23 p.m. on Sunday, WOWT said the Cox stations had returned.

“WOWT is pleased to announce that it has reached a new carriage agreement with Cox Cable,” the station stated. “Our signal returned to the cable lineup Sunday afternoon. We appreciate your support of WOWT!”

Three North Carolina TV stations that went dark to Dish Network subscribers on Dec. 22 returned to customers Tuesday after the parties apparently reached a new retransmission consent agreement.

Capitol Broadcasting’ s WRAL (CBS) and WRAZ (Fox) in Raleigh, N.C. and WILM (CBS) in Wilmington, N.C., went dark to Dish subscribers on Dec. 22, primarily over affiliate fees. 

According to reports, the stations returned to Dish customers at 9 p.m. on Jan. 6.

In a brief statement on its website on Jan. 7, the stations said they had reached a “mutually acceptable agreement” with Dish.

Dish Network, locked in a lengthy carriage dispute with 21st Century Fox cable channels Fox News Chanel and Fox Business Network, managed to reach a smaller retrans pact with two Maryland stations on Dec. 31.

While the cable battle rages on – as do retrans disputes with three North Carolina stations, owned by Capitol Broadcasting, WRAL (CBS) and WRAZ (Fox) in Raleigh, N.C. and WILM (CBS) in Wilmington, N.C. – Draper Holdings Business Trust, owner of WBOC (CBS) and Fox 21 (Fox) in Salisbury, Md., said it had reached a deal with the satellite TV company.

"WBOC-TV and FOX21 are pleased to announce we will continue to be available to Dish subscribers,” the stations said in a statement. “We have reached an agreement designed to secure continued carriage of our top-rated stations on Dish for the foreseeable future. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the support and understanding our family, friends and neighbors here on Delmarva have demonstrated this week."

The National Cable Television Cooperative, the equipment and programming buying group for nearly 950 small and medium-sized operators across the country, said it has struck a retransmission consent deal with Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, agreeing on a long-term pact that covers the broadcaster’s eight owned and operated stations across the country.

The NCTC has made other retrans deals for its members – its 2013 comprehensive carriage agreement with NBC Universal also included the programmer’s 10 owned and operated broadcast stations.

The stations involved in the pact include WABC-TV in New York City, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, WLS-TV in Chicago, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, KGO-TV in San Francisco, WTVD-TV in Raleigh-Durham, KTRK-TV in Houston and KFSN in Fresno.   Additionally, NCTC members in ABC-owned markets will continue to have the ability to provide the authenticated WATCH ABC live streaming service to their customers.

The retransmission consent agreement comes on the heels of a comprehensive long-term distribution agreement completed in August between Disney and NCTC.

“We are pleased to have reached, for the first time, a retransmission consent agreement with the Walt Disney Company that supports our members’ efforts to competitively offer their customers the ABC owned broadcast station programming in these critical television markets,” NCTC executive vice president of programming Judy Meyka said in a statement.

As part of the earlier deal, the NCTC was able to offer new services including the full suite of authenticated WATCH and video-on-demand products as well as Fusion, the SEC Network, the Longhorn Network, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater and ESPN Bases Loaded.  Additionally, networks that continued to be covered by the broad scope of the earlier agreement included ABC Family, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic and ESPN3.

"We are pleased for the first time ever to work with NCTC to expand our long relationship to now include an agreement for retransmission consent  for the eight ABC-owned broadcast stations,” said Disney & ESPN Networks executive vice president, affiliate sales and marketing David Preschlack in a statement.  "NCTC and its members clearly value the important role our highly-rated ABC stations play in their local communities, and we look forward to providing compelling and meaningful content for their customers."

New Year’s Day could be less than festive for Cable One subscribers who enjoy NBCUniversal fare.

Comcast’s programming arm began alerting the MSO’s customers that they could lose nine cable networks, plus NBC and Telemundo stations, if the parties can’t reach a new carriage agreement.

Contracts covering USA Network, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, Sprout, CNBC, MSNBC, NBCSN, mun 2, as well as NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations, are set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31 NBC stations serving Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Boise, Idaho and Biloxi, Miss. are among the 11 that could go dark if NBCU and Cable One can’t bridge their monthly license fee differences.

Carriage of Golf Channel and E!, which were owned by Comcast before it acquired NBCU in 2011, are governed by a different contract.

NBCU began running crawl messages on USA, Syfy and NBCSN last night, with Bravo slated to join the mix today. NBCU is also getting the word out via MyShowsMatter.com (pictured).

The gambit came despite that the fact that both parties say that discussions are continuing, although the programmer characterized the talks in less than glowing terms.

“NBCUniversal offered Cable One rates at fair market value that have been widely accepted by hundreds of MVPDs. In this case, NBCUniversal has offered Cable One a deal at the same rates we provide to the NCTC, rates that were negotiated when a former Cable One executive was on the NCTC programming committee and approved the agreement,” the programmer said in a statement. “Cable One has declined all NBCUniversal offers stating they believe it deserves to receive our valuable programming at below market rates. At this point, based on Cable One's unwillingness to productively negotiate, we have to start informing our viewers that they are at risk of losing access to our programming. As the most-watched media company, we know the enormous value we bring to Cable One’s customers and hope that Cable One will reconsider and decide to continue carrying our services.”

Cable One responded with the following statement on its Facebook customer service page early Thursday afternoon: “We are shocked and dismayed that NBC Universal has launched a negative ad campaign regarding our current negotiations. Despite the fact that NBC Universal is currently demanding a rate increase that is more than double our previous contract, we are continuing to negotiate in good faith and are optimistic that we will come to an agreement. We are listening to feedback from our customers that they would like to keep these channels, and we will continue to negotiate on their behalf to resolve this agreement and avoid disruption to their channels.”

If the parties disconnect, it would mark the second major blackout with a top programming group for the MSO, which now counts just over 475,000 subscribers in 19 states. Cable One no longer offers Viacom networks as part of its video package, after MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central and others went dark after the expiration of its NCTC pact on April 1.

The operator, which has seen its video subscriber rolls dip 15% since Q3 2013, has said it is downplaying video in favor of broadband service.

The NBCU carriage contretemps come as Graham Holdings has authorized its board of directors to spin off its Cable One assets, in a transaction that could be finalized in 2015.

Dish Network’s retransmission-consent battle with CBS ended almost as soon as it began, with the parties reaching a comprehensive retransmission-consent and carriage accord early Saturday morning, mere hours after the networks went dark to select subscribers.

CBS owned-and-operated stations in 18 markets went dark to select Dish customers at 7 p.m. on Friday after months of negotiations. While CBS expressed extreme frustration in what it called Dish’s foot-dragging in reaching a deal, Dish had stressed that talks continued even as the blackout was implemented.

The standoff ended up lasting less than a day. In a joint statement Saturday morning, Dish and CBS said they had not only reached a retransmission-consent deal for the stations, but a carriage accord for CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel, TVGN and Showtime Networks, including Showtime TV Everywhere and video-on-demand rights.

In addition, all pending litigation against the company has been dropped, and Dish has agreed to disable its Auto Hop ad-skipping functionality for CBS owned stations in the C7 window.

“We are very pleased with this deal, which meets all of our economic and strategic objectives,” CBS Television Networks Distribution president Ray Hopkins said in a statement. “We look forward to having Dish as a valued partner for many years to come.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to continue delivering CBS programming to our customers, while expanding their digital access to Showtime content through Showtime Anytime,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish senior vice president, programming in a statement.

The agreement includes retransmission consent for CBS owned stations on Dish in New York (WCBS and WLNY), Los Angeles (KCBS and KCAL), San Francisco (KPIX and KBCW), Dallas (KTVT and KTXA),  Denver (KCNC), Boston (WBZ and WSBK), Chicago (WBBM), Pittsburgh (KDKA and WPCW),  Atlanta (WUPA), Baltimore (WJZ), Detroit (WWJ and WKBD), Miami (WFOR and WBFS), Minneapolis (WCCO), Philadelphia (KYW and WPSG), Sacramento (KOVR and KMAX), Seattle (KSTW) and Tampa (WTOG).

The agreement also grants Dish rights to Showtime video-on-demand content and authentication rights for Showtime Anytime, and includes a path to over-the-top distribution of Showtime Networks.

Dish chairman Charlie Ergen has said the company is on track to launch an over-the-top service, including network content from channels owned by The Walt Disney Co., Scripps Interactive Networks and A&E Networks, by year-end.

With the deal, the parties avoid any consumer consternation that may have emanated from football fans missing the SEC Championship game between top-ranked Alabama and Missouri on Saturday on CBS, not to mention Black Rock's slate of NFL action on Sunday.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has is pushing Cox and Verizon (FiOS) to end their retransmission-consent dispute following the blackout of Cox's Fox affiliate WFXT TV Boston.

Markey, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said consumers were being hurt by the absence of the station to some 400,000 households. He did not point fingers at either side but simply pressed them to get a deal done for the sake of his constituents.

“For many Massachusetts consumers, Black Friday was preceded by blackout Thursday and could be followed by further programming blackouts until Cox Media Group and Verizon come to agreement," Markey said in a statement. "That's not right - the consumer shouldn't be caught in the middle. I urge both sides to continue working to resolve this dispute so consumers can access all of the programming they have paid for and expect from their video provider.”

WFXT dark at 3 a.m. on Thanksgiving.  In it most recent update on the station Web site, WFXT said it's continuing to negotiate with Verizon.

Both as a senator and as a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Markey has been a consistent prod to retrans players to get their deals done.