DIRECTV Testing National Feed of NBC in Areas Affected by TEGNA Outage
More than 60 TEGNA-owned local channels around the country are currently blacked out for DIRECTV customers, many of them NBC affiliates.
While there has been no reported progress between DIRECTV and TEGNA to restore the local affiliates that have been blacked out since the end of November to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and AT&T U-Verse customers, DIRECTV is reportedly working on some sort of a temporary patch. The satellite and streaming provider may be gearing up for a wide launch of a national NBC feed for affected customers.
- Stream TV Insider reports DIRECTV has been testing NBC national feed in some areas affected by TEGNA outage.
- A large percentage of the blacked-out TEGNA stations on DIRECTV are NBC affiliates.
- A national feed would provide viewers with live news and sports from NBC, as well as primetime shows, but no regional or local content.
What Is a National Feed of NBC?
A report from Stream TV Insider indicates that some Seattle-based DIRECTV customers began noticing in late December that they had a new, national feed of NBC available to watch, just a few spots down on their channel guide from where their local NBC affiliate had been.
A national feed offers some of the same content that viewers can watch on their local NBC affiliate, but not all. For example, live sports like “Sunday Night Football” and national news programs like “Nightly News with Lester Holt” will still be available, but local news broadcasts during afternoons and evenings will not. There may be large sign-off blocks during the day for a national NBC feed, which would be filled by local affiliates with regional news, syndicated series, reruns, or other programming.
A DIRECTV spokesperson confirmed to Stream TV insider that the company was “testing some capabilities as we explore alternative delivery options to help offset the rising costs of retransmission consent.” The Streamable has reached out to the television provider for further details, but a comment was not available at the time of publication.
Why is National NBC Feed Necessary for Some DIRECTV Users?
A retransmission fee dispute has caused 64 TEGNA-owned stations (most of them NBC affiliates) to become unavailable for users of DIRECTV’s various services since the end of November. As is usual in such cases, DIRECTV has made the case to customers that paying TEGNA’s retransmission fee increases would mean higher subscription fees, while TEGNA has argued it is only requesting fair, market-based fee hikes.
For its part, TEGNA struck an unimpressed tone in a statement made by email to Stream TV Insider.
“DIRECTV is playing games at customers’ expense,” the TEGNA spokesperson said. “DIRECTV should be focusing its efforts on negotiating to reach a fair deal, like we’ve negotiated with numerous other providers in just the last month without disruption. We continue to hold out hope that eventually DirecTV will prioritize its paying subscribers. In the meantime, our viewers should switch to a TV provider they can count on, including cable companies and live-streaming services, all of which carry our stations.”
The national feed route is the same path taken by Fubo earlier this year when it lost access to local CBS affiliates in a similar retransmission dispute. It took two months for CBS stations to return to Fubo after first leaving that service, so if the DIRECTV-TEGNA dispute lasts around the same amount of time channels might be back on DIRECTV services by the end of January.
That’s pure conjecture, however, and the rhetoric from TEGNA and DIRECTV currently indicates that neither side believes the other is ready to sit back down at a negotiating table and make meaningful concessions. The testing of an NBC national feed by DIRECTV is in fact an indication that the company believes this outage could go on for an extended length of time.
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