EUREKA, CALIF. — At 6:30pm Pacific on Friday, Jan. 8, subscribers to the dominant cable TV services provider in Humboldt County, Calif., lost access to the NBC and CBS affiliates serving this pocket of the Golden State known for its greener pastures, behind the “Redwood Curtain.”
The “blackout” of the stations came as Altice USA’s Suddenlink, by law, was prevented from offering two Cox Media Group stations in the absence of a new retransmission services agreement.
Today, the stations remain absent from Suddenlink’s local systems, as do other CMG stations once owned by Brian Brady’s Northwest Broadcasting. Now, the Member of Congress serving Northwest California is ready to take action on Capitol Hill that could help thwart such disputes — and the consumer harm they create.
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FOX affiliates KAYU-28 in Spokane, WHBQ-13 in Memphis and KOKI-23 in Tulsa; ABC affiliate KLAX-31 in Alexandria; the CBS and NBC affiliates serving Eureka-Arcata, Calif.; and the ABC, FOX, NBC and CBS stations serving Greenwood and Greenville, Miss., are now being blocked from viewers.
In Eureka-Arcata, the absence of long-dominant NBC KIEM-3 and CBS sister KVIQ-LD 14 has led Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) to move forward with the reintroduction of legislation that was first brought to fruition in Congress in 2019.
The bill focused on the proposed merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media, which imploded following the issuance of a Hearing Designation Order by the FCC to Sinclair due to the company’s questionable proposed spinoff of such stations as WPIX-11 in New York and WGN-9 in Chicago.
Speaking Jan. 22 to the Times-Standard, Huffman hopes the political landscape created by a shift in control to the Democrats across the executive and legislative branches of the federal government is more favorable today.
Addressing the “blackout” of CMG stations by Suddenlink, Huffman told the Gannett-owned newspaper, “I think these are the types of things that happen when you have too much media consolidation and not enough competition. This isn’t the first time that we’ve had issues like this on the North Coast. I think we need this new administration and the FCC to do a much better job pushing back on this consolidation trend.”
Huffman’s plan of action follows a letter sent to both Congress and the FCC on January 15 by Sean McLaughlin, described by the Times-Standard as a “local media advocate.” McLaughlin called on Congress and the FCC to address “underlying policy actions needed to secure and protect media localism.”
He wrote, “We call upon those corporations to consider the impact on local communities and note that Altice has offered CMG to continue carrying those stations while they negotiate their retransmission consent agreement. Ultimately, these absentee corporations are negotiating a cost that will be born by local cable subscribers in our region. Efforts like Congressman Huffman’s proposed legislation, the Local and Independent Television Protection Act, deserve immediate attention and widespread support.”
Huffman represents California’s second Congressional district, which stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border and includes Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, and Del Norte counties. He was first elected to Congress in November 2012 and currently serves on the Committee on Natural Resources, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
