As part of a longterm affiliation agreement between Sinclair and the Nexstar-owned CW network, 21 CW affiliates controlled by Sinclair are being restored to DirecTV Stream.
The local channels were taken down from the virtual pay TV service in July, as part of the ongoing retransmission renewal impasse between Nexstar Media Group and private-equity-controlled DirecTV.
Since networks typically control vMVPD negotiations and not station owners, at least for now, Nexstar involved the 21 stations in a two-month-old DirecTV blackout that has spanned more than 200 local stations nationwide. (The full list of affected CW affiliates is below.)
Nexstar purchased a 75% stake in the CW a year ago, and Sinclair operates 21 of the network's affiliates nationwide. Some of those 21 stations are not owned by Sinclair, but controlled by the large broadcaster under management services agreements with Cunningham Broadcasting Corp., Deerfield Media, MPS Media and GoCome Media.
“We’re certainly pleased that Sinclair seems to have seized the right to provide its viewers, and our customers, the programming they should have always retained in the first place," said a DirecTV rep in a statement to Next TV.
Station owners, which have traditionally controlled broadcast retransmission fee negotiations with linear MVPDs, are seeking to have more control over relationships with virtual MVPDs, which have so far worked with the larger networks on retrans deals.
