The direct broadcast satellite TV service provider is pointing fingers, citing a demand for higher fees. The broadcast TV station owner is sticking to its guns, telling viewers it “committed to continuing negotiations and finding a fair resolution as quickly as possible.”
Welcome to the latest retransmission consent negotiation to result in the removal, by law, of broadcast television stations from a MVPD — this time frequent “blackout” artist DirecTV.
Sticking to its guns is Morgan Murphy Media, the Wisconsin TV station ownership group founded with a newspaper in 1890 that remains family-controlled today.
In a message appearing across five TV stations MMM owns, the company explains that its carriage agreement with DirecTV expired at 11pm last Friday (3/6).
“While we wished to avoid a disruption in your DIRECTV/U-Verse service, without an agreement or extension, DIRECTV/U-Verse chose to remove our programming from its lineup,” the company said.
Of course, there are two sides to every dispute, and DirecTV has once again taken the viewpoint that a broadcast TV station owner is seeking too much in the way of compensation for the right to provide their over-the-air signal to the DBS provider.
On X, DirecTV responded to a query from Chris Yaudas, President of the Southwest Missouri Conservative Network, by stating, “Morgan Murphy has chosen to block its local stations during our current contract discussions … They’re asking for a sizable increase in fees, and we’re committed to keeping TV costs as reasonable as possible for our customers. Thank you for your patience while we continue conversations with Morgan Murphy to restore service.”
Yaudas’ response? “You’ve been spreading that same b.s. ever since you were supposedly negotiating to get ABC back on my feed. Your negotiators suck at their job.”
Impacted stations include WISC-3 in Madison, Wisc.; WKBT-8 in LaCrosse-Eau Claire, Wisc.; KXLY-4 in Spokane, Wash.; KAPP-35 in Yakima, Wash., and simulcast partner KVEW-42 in Kennewick, Wash.; and former Saga Communications property KOAM-7 in the Joplin, Mo.-Pittsburg, Ks. DMA.
Other Morgan Murphy stations are not impacted by this impasse, the first major dispute to involve the company in six years. That “blackout” involved AT&T U-Verse subscribers. Prior to that, a January 2017 dispute saw KXLY. the ABC affiliate serving a region that includes Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, blacked out along with MeTV-affiliated KXMN-9 to subscribers of Altice USA’s Suddenlink cable TV services in Idaho.
