Welcome to the latest carriage fee impact to arise for a broadcast television company, adding to a long string of impasses resulting in “blackouts,” by law, of some of a cable TV service provider’s most-watched channels.
This one involves the hub of New England and the pride of the three rivers.
As expected, Verizon Fios and Cox Media Group were unable to reach a fresh retransmission consent accord, leading to the December 15 cessation of access for the MVPD’s subscribers in Boston of FOX affiliate WFXT-25 and in Pittsburgh of NBC affiliate WPXI-11.
Also as expected came one-sided barbs full of biased accusation.
“Verizon Fios dropped leading local broadcast stations WPXI-TV and ‘Boston 25’ from its lineup today after refusing multiple offers to extend negotiations for a new carriage agreement for the top local TV stations,” says Cox Media Group, pointing fingers at “the telecom giant” for blocking viewers’ access to each station.
While Verizon is one of the nation’s biggest wireless services providers, its MVPD footprint never expanded beyond the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions of the U.S. And, it has yielded to pro-MVPD advocacy group American Television Alliance (ATVA) to serve as its anti-broadcaster megaphone in its fight against CMG.
ATVA spokesman Hunter Wilson said last week, “This TV blackout would be yet another example of Big Broadcasters leveraging disruption to demand outsized profits at the expense of American consumers.”
Wilson also pointed to Cox Media Group’s “decision to hold stations for ransom across two markets while demanding exorbitant retransmission consent fee increases for programming that is free over the air” that has led to the impasse.
The loss of WPXI and WFXT to Verizon Fios subscribers in Pittsburgh and Boston is hardly fresh ground for Cox Media Group. In November 2022, CMG’s stations were again blocked from Dish subscribers due to a retransmission consent impasse. This came following a July 2020 breakdown in negotiations leading to a seven-month “blackout” of CMG stations on Dish.
At the end of January 2021, a particularly bitter battle between Suddenlink and CMG ended after three weeks. Then, in February 2021, DirecTV and CMG failed to reach a fresh retransmission consent deal, leading to a “blackout.”
But as Kevin Hayes, WPXI’s VP/GM, sees it, “Verizon/Fios should stop holding its own customers hostage in its attempts to harm local journalism and community service, all while it tries to get even larger at the expense of our loyal viewers.”
Todd Brown, Hayes’ counterpart at WFXT, added, “We remain committed to negotiating in good faith to secure a fair carriage agreement, just as we’ve done with all of the dozens of other TV providers that continue to deliver our award-winning station to viewers.”
The words “fair carriage agreement” are important, as Nexstar Media Group just received a win from the FCC in a bad faith complaint filed by Cincinnati-based regional MVPD altafiber, failing to demonstrate that Nexstar was not fairly negotiating a carriage fee deal in Dayton and Cincinnati for NewsNation and its WDTN-2 in Dayton.
