Breaking: DIRECTV, TEGNA Reach Multi-Year Deal Ending Blackout of 64 Local Channels
The two sides have announced an agreement that ends a blackout of TEGNA-owned channels that begin in late-November.
After a month-and-a-half-long stalemate, DIRECTV and local station owner TEGNA have agreed to a new retransmission deal to keep the local affiliates available to subscribers for the next few years. There have been no details released about the deal, but the timing was conspicuous. TEGNA is the largest owner of local NBC affiliates in the country, many of which were blacked out on DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and AT&T U-verse because of the dispute. However, the new agreement was announced on the same day that NBC opened the 2023-24 NFL playoffs with a broadcast of the Wild Card game between the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns.
-After a month and a half, DIRECTV and TEGNA have announced that they have reached a deal to restore 64 channels to the TV distributor.
-The announcement was made just as the NFL playoffs were getting ready to begin on many of TEGNA’s NBC affiliates.
-No details have yet been released about the agreement, other than to say that is a multi-year deal.
The new deal to carry the channels was announced by DIRECTV in a short, but to-the-point release by the company. The financial terms of these types of contracts are generally not disclosed publicly, but the announcement coming on the day that the NFL postseason kicked off indicates that either DIRECTV was concerned enough about the potential flight of customers frustrated that it raised how much it was willing to pay for the channels, or that the potential loss of advertising revenue associated with the channels being dark led to TEGNA being willing to come down from its most recent asking price. Of course, there is also the possibility that both are at least partially responsible.
“DIRECTV and TEGNA have reached a new multi-year distribution agreement covering TEGNA’s 64 owned stations in 51 Nielsen designated markets,” DIRECTV said. “All stations and programming will return to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and U-verse customers today. DIRECTV and TEGNA greatly appreciate the patience of their subscribers and viewers.”
As with nearly all carriage and retransmission disputes, there is a chance that this one could lead to increased fees for DIRECTV customers. If the price that the company agreed to pay in order to distribute TEGNA’s channels is high enough, the cost will almost assuredly be passed on to DIRECTV subscribers. That is why the satellite and streaming company initially offered a unique proposal to TEGNA. DIRECTV unveiled a plan at the beginning of the dispute that would allow consumers to opt into subscribing to TEGNA’s local channels, rather than being forced to have them included in their base channel lineup.
The idea behind the proposal is that it would give customers more choice in what channels they paid for and would allow TEGNA to set the price that it wanted to sell its channels for. However, TEGNA dismissed the proposal as being “unserious.” As of now, it is not known if there were any elements of DIRECTv’s initial plan that were eventually incorporated into the new deal.
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