LOS ANGELES — As of last Monday, the latest retransmission consent fee impasse to impact a wide swath of the television consumer audience was expected to rear its ugly head. Some 26 FOX Networks Group MVPD-distributed and broadcast channels were expected go dark, due to a lapsed retransmission consent accord with one of the nation’s two direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service providers.
In the 10am Pacific hour on Saturday, those fears were alleviated.
Fox Corporation and DirecTV successfully reached an agreement on a multi-year renewal of FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, FOX Deportes, FOX Soccer Plus, and retransmission consent for each of the local FOX Television Stations overseen by Jack Abernethy, one of the industry’s most respected leaders. He is ranked No. 1 on RBR+TVBR‘s Broadcast Television’s Best Leaders of 2022. Under Abernethy’s leadership, all of the FOX TV stations have shown considerable growth, in particular with their local news and public affairs programming.
The retrans agreement is valid across the DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and U-verse.
The stations winning a new retrans deal include the following FOX stations:
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KCPQ-13 in Seattle
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KDFW-4 in Dallas-Fort Worth
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KMSP-9 in Minneapolis-St. Paul
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KRIV-26 in Houston
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KSAZ-10 in Phoenix
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KTBC-7 in Austin
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KTTV-11 in Los Angeles
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KTVU-2 in San Francisco
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WAGA-5 in Atlanta
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WFLD-32 in Chicago
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WJBK-2 in Detroit
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WITI-6 in Milwaukee
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WNYW-5 in New York
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WOFL-35 in Orlando
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WTTG-5 in Washington, D.C.
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WTVT-13 in Tampa-St. Petersburg
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WTXF-29 in Philadelphia
As reported by TheDesk.net, independent and MyNetwork-partner stations owned by Fox would also be blocked from DirecTV viewers. These stations include WRBW-65 in Orlando, WPWR-50 in Chicago, WFTC-9.2 in Minneapolis, WWOR-9 in the New York market, KUTP-45 in Phoenix, KCOP-13 in Los Angeles, KICU-36 in San Francisco, and WDCA-20 in Washington, D.C.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
“As expected, we renewed with Fox without affecting the entertainment experience for our customers, while still holding the line against the usual scare tactics,” a FOX spokesperson commented.
Yet, warning messages of a possible loss of service to DirecTV subscribers began appearing in on-screen crawls on November 27.
While FOX and DirecTV have a new deal, two others that have grabbed headlines of late remain unresolved.
Most notably, DirecTV’s current spat is with a shared services partner with close ties to the nation’s largest broadcast TV station owner, Nexstar Media Group. One month ago, 25 television stations licensed to Mission Broadcasting went dark on DirecTV in lieu of a fresh retrans deal.
This follows battles between DirecTV and Cox Media Group, and a notable fight between the owner of DirecTV, AT&T TV NOW and U-Verse against eight groups that have shared services agreements with Sinclair Broadcast Group — the latter of which saw a FCC Media Bureau “good faith” complaint filed at the Commission against Sinclair.
