LAS VEGAS — With many of Gray Media‘s regulatory policy leaders in attendance at the 2026 NAB Show, which concludes Wednesday, the broadcast television station group’s attorney at Washington law firm Cooley LLP has submitted a formal complaint to the FCC that claims DISH Network is in violation of retransmission consent rules.
How so? A CBS affiliate in Knoxville can be seen at a local hotel. Why is this a problem? The hotel’s TV service is through a DISH-owned distribution platform, the Atlanta-headquartered company claims.
The retransmission consent complaint centers around the use of a SMARTBOX at the Hotel Cleo in Knoxville.
The hip “Tribute Portfolio Hotel” uses the service, and it appears it still is offering WVLT-TV in Knoxville to its customers, including this particular downtown hotel.
That’s not cool with Gray, which wants the FCC to issue an order immediately ceasing via SMARTBOX any Gray-owned station. It also wants the Commission to have SMARTBOX and Dish provide a list of all Gray stations that have been available in any other market since the March 10, 2026, conclusion of the companies’ prior carriage agreement.
Fines and other remedies are being sought by Gray from Dish, as stated in the complaint filed by Cooley LLP attorney Jason Rademacher.
How did Gray find out about the availability of WVLT at the Hotel Cleo? It knows this because its own Senior VP for Government Relations and Distribution, Robert Folliard III, stayed at the Hotel Cleo between March 23-25, nearly two weeks after the Dish retransmission accord concluded.
Folliard asked hotel staff as to how they receive their television channels; the response was that DISH offered it.
To be clear, it is not the Dish service that consumers at home would get. Rather, it is a service Dish owns that is provided to more than two million hotel rooms via the SMARTBOX technology.
As Gray explained in the FCC complaint, “SMARTBOX is not simply a piece of equipment leased to hotels and other businesses. It is part of a managed commercial service offered by DISH to hotels and other multi-dwelling environments for distribution to hotel guests and others that features up to 192 channels of satellite delivered and over-the-air broadcast signals. DISH provides the service to the SMARTBOX user, including signal processing, construction of the channel lineup, and preparing the service for distribution throughout the business location.”
If a property owner ceases use of a SMARTBOX, it is to be returned to Dish, further establishing the link. “Even if the hotel or other business owner does purchase the SMARTBOX and associated equipment, it is useless without the management services that DISH provides,” Gray added. “If the business owner stops taking the DISH services associated with the SMARTBOX, the device apparently ceases to be of any use to that business owner.”
Lastly, Gray points out that the SMARTBOX system fails to qualify for the “master antenna television system” exemption.
