Blackout for Dish Network subscribers includes 11Alive

Satellite TV provider Dish Network is in the middle of yet another carriage dispute. This time, the company has lost local broadcast stations for nearly 3 million Dish TV customers in 53 markets after missing Wednesday’s deadline for a new agreement with Tegna. Dish says the blackout affects about 3 million of its customers nationwide.

Dish is accusing Tegna of demanding higher retransmission fees for the carriage of its channels while trying to boost its value as it reportedly seeks a sale.

All of TEGNA’s 64 stations are now impacted, including NBC affiliate 11Alive. In the past, WSB-TV and Fox 5 have found themselves in similar disputes which resulted in blackouts and viewers missing favorite programs on these stations. 

Defending its position, Tegna released a statement saying, “Dish has refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement with us based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach deals with numerous other providers that reflect the current market. While Dish is one of our smaller distributors, we regret any inconvenience for any of our customers, and hope that Dish will come back to the table to get a deal done to return our valuable programming to their system.” 

In response, Dish accuses Tegna of being greedy, saying, “We made a fair offer to keep Tegna stations available to our customers, but Tegna rejected it, forcing the removal of its channels. Tegna is looking to sell its stations to the highest bidder and is simply trying to exploit Dish customers as a way to get the maximum price and further fatten their wallets.”