It came to pass at Midnight.
DIRECTV has removed, by law, all Cox Media Group TV stations from its lineups after CMG’s offer to extend negotiations was declined.
As such, in the absence of a fresh retransmission consent accord, DIRECTV had to block the stations from its paying subscribers — a move CMG stations have been warning viewers about for the last week.
As the clock struck midnight Saturday, CMG was already on the offensive, noting how the direct broadcast satellite provider “already dropped hundreds of stations over the last few months,” and that “this latest drop is a continuation of its ongoing mission against local journalism.”
in CMG’s view, “With this move, DIRECTV has once again blocked millions of consumers from accessing the vital local news, emergency information, weather, traffic, sports, and entertainment programming that CMG’s TV stations provide.”
As is typical in retransmission accord disputes, the blame game and fingerpointing was seen here, too.
“While we’ve been signing dozens of fair-market carriage deals that bring our high-quality programming to more than 50 million viewers, DIRECTV has been dropping hundreds of TV stations and depriving its customers of the local content they want and paid DIRECTV for,” said Marian Pittman, EVP of CMG. “Now DIRECTV is at it again. We call on DIRECTV to stop holding viewers hostage to its anti-consumer agenda.”
This time around, the big theme is how DIRECTV “is threatening local journalism at a time when broadcast TV stations are often the last source of local news, emergency information, and consumer protection left in their communities.”
As such, CMG asserts, local broadcast stations, including CMG’s stations, are the most popular channels on DIRECTV’s lineup.
“We remain committed to negotiating in good faith to secure a fair carriage agreement with DIRECTV, just as we’ve done with dozens of other TV providers that continue to deliver our award-winning stations to their customers,” Pittman said.
Concerned viewers are being asked to call DIRECTV at 1-800-531-5000 and “demand that DIRECTV brings back local CMG stations.”
Viewers can also drop DIRECTV now and switch to Xfinity, Spectrum, Verizon/FIOS TV, YouTube TV, or Hulu+Live TV, where their local CMG stations are available, the broadcast station owner shares.
Could this impact the Super Bowl? CBS affiliated stations in the CMG family are KIRO-7 in Seattle and WHIO-7 in Dayton, Ohio.
How is DIRECTV spinning the story? A company spokesperson said, “Unfortunately, Cox has resorted to its old ways and has once again pulled its stations from our customers.”
DIRECTV then assailed Cox for “rejecting the latest extension offer on the table while both sides continue to work to reach a new agreement.”
It continued, “This is an unfortunate and all too familiar path for CMG, which pulled its signals from DIRECTV in its last renewal in 2021, agreeing to restore its stations just hours before the 2021 Super Bowl. CMG has also been down on DISH since November 2022, as well as threatened or pulled its signals from Comcast (Jan. 2020), DISH (March-April 2016 and Jan. 2020) DIRECTV (Jan. 2017 and Jan.-Feb. 2021) Frontier (Jan. 2018), FuboTV (Feb. 2023), Suddenlink (Jan. 2021) and others.”
In fact, DIRECTV says, “CMG is playing chicken with the industry, willfully ignoring the economics that its programming does not warrant a double-digit annual rate increase on top of an already exorbitant fee structure. By pulling its stations, CMG intends to penalize its viewers twice – once when pulling the programming and again when they return it at an unwarranted higher rate – adding insult to injury.”
This, DIRECTV concludes, “is another clear example that underscores the need for a new path forward to combat rising retransmission rates, which have increased 270% since 2015 as detailed in the proposal from DIRECTV. DIRECTV is committed to working towards a new agreement that will align the value and quality customers receive with the price they pay.”
