Breaking: Cox Media Group, DIRECTV Cannot Reach New Contract; 13 Channels in Nine Markets Blacked Out
Following disputes with Nexstar and TEGNA in 2023, DIRECTV is now in its third blackout with a major channel owner since mid-2023.
In what has become an unwelcomed pattern, some DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and U-verse customers are having to deal with yet another channel blackout. DIRECTV and Cox Media Group (CMG) have been unable to come to a new retransmission agreement for the 13 channels that the satellite and live TV streaming company distributes, therefore, affiliates in nine media markets — including Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Orlando, and Seattle — have gone dark. The previous contract between the two sides ended on Feb. 2, meaning that the channels disappeared from DIRECTV channel guides on Saturday, Feb. 3.
- For the third time in seven months, DIRECTV is in a retransmission dispute with a local channel owner.
- This blackout comes three years after the last time DIRECTV customers lost access to Cox Media Group channels due to a retrans disagreement.
- Subscribers in nine media markets are without their local Cox Media Group affiliates.
In January, CMG made the contract negotiations public, accusing DIRECTV of being “anti-consumer” and threatening to harm local journalism. This blackout impacts local affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, MyNetworkTV, and Telemundo.
Both sides are pointing the finger in the other direction as the cause of this service interruption. DIRECTV notes that CMG has been in eight similar disagreements with nearly every other channel distributor in recent years. The company also stresses that as the channel owner, Cox is solely responsible for whether or not DIRECTV has the right to continue airing the channels. DIRECTV notes that if CMG wanted to keep its channels on the air while it negotiated a new deal, it is its sole discretion to do so; DIRECTV cannot keep the channels in its lineup once the contract has expired.
“We’ve been in negotiations with Cox Media Group since before they began messaging on Jan. 26,” a DIRECTV representative told The Streamable. “Unfortunately, Cox has resorted to its old ways and has once again pulled its stations from our customers.”
This blackout comes exactly three years after the two sides were in the exact same situation and CMG channels were pulled from DIRECTV platforms when the previous contract expired. That dispute lasted only five days, but was similarly timed around Super Bowl LV, perhaps adding each side an incentive to come to a resolution. Like this year’s Big Game, that Super Bowl also aired on CBS; if there is no resolution to this current dispute, DIRECTV subscribers in Dayton, Ohio; Jacksonville, Florida, and Seattle and Tacoma, Washington will have to find other ways to watch the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers play for the Lombardi Trophy.
Fortunately, the game will be available on Paramount+, and currently, consumers can get 30 days of the service for free with promo code PAW30.
As with all business decisions, this disagreement comes down to money. Cox Media Group is asking for an increase in the fee that DIRECTV must pay in order to retransmit CMG’s single. DIRECTV has been arguing for a new model for quite some time as it states that these retransmission fees have increased by 270% in the last nine years alone. These exponential increases inevitably have to be reflected in subscription costs which drive more and more customers away from pay-TV providers.
With an increasing number of customers moving away from traditional TV, viewership decreases leading to lower advertising revenue. Therefore, station owners must find a way to supplement that lost income; which is reflected in the increased retrans fees. DIRECTV claims that CMG is asking for a more than 10% increase in its annual fees, which would then have to be passed on to consumers.
“CMG is playing chicken with the industry, willfully ignoring the economics that its programming does not warrant a double-digit annual rate increase on top of an already exorbitant fee structure,” DIRECTV said in a statement. “By pulling its stations, CMG intends to penalize its viewers twice — once when pulling the programming and again when they return it at an unwarranted higher rate — adding insult to injury.”
While DIRECTV is open about the financial implications of these types of situations — often nothing that any price increase that comes out of one of these carriage or retransmission disputes will inevitably lead to customer cancellations — CMG is attacking DIRECT, accusing the distributor of having an “ongoing mission against local journalism.”
Admittedly, DIRECTV has been involved in a number of negotiations that have resulted in blackouts recently. Just last month, the distributor ended a six-week stalemate with channel owner TEGNA that impacted 64 local channels. Earlier in 2023, DIRECTV subscribers lost access to 176 channels owned by Nexstar for two and a half months before a new contract was reached.
Cox Media Group is using these previous disputes as a way to paint the satellite and streaming provider as being against consumers and local journalism.
“While we’ve been signing dozens of fair-market carriage deals that bring our high-quality programming to more than 50 million viewers, DIRECTV has been dropping hundreds of TV stations and depriving its customers of the local content they want and paid DIRECTV for,” CMG EVP Marian Pittman said. “Now DIRECTV is at it again. We call on DIRECTV to stop holding viewers hostage to its anti-consumer agenda.”
In statements to press, both sides have noted that they remain committed to negotiating a fair conclusion to the disagreement. Whether or not that resolution occurs before the Big Game is yet to be seen, but the importance of the Super Bowl to both viewers and local channels will hopefully be enough to result in a speedy conclusion.
What Cox-owned stations are blacked out on DIRECTV?
| City of Market | Station | Channel | Network affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacksonville, Florida | WFOX-TV | 30 | Fox, Telemundo |
| WJAX-TV | 47 | CBS | |
| Orlando–Daytona Beach, Florida | WFTV | 9 | ABC |
| WRDQ | 27 | Independent | |
| Atlanta, Georgia | WSB-TV | 2 | ABC |
| Boston, Massachusetts | WFXT | 25 | Fox |
| Charlotte, North Carolina | WSOC-TV | 9 | ABC, Telemundo |
| WAXN-TV | 64 | Independent | |
| Dayton, Ohio | WHIO-TV | 7 | CBS |
| Eugene, Oregon | KLSR-TV | 34 | Fox |
| KEVU-CD | 23 | MyNetworkTV | |
| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | WPXI | 11 | NBC |
| Seattle–Tacoma, Washington | KIRO-TV | 7 | CBS, Telemundo |
DIRECTV STREAM
DIRECTV STREAM is a live TV streaming service, which is essentially the streaming version of the DIRECTV service. All packages include local channels and at least 31 of the top 35 cable channels. New subscribers can get a free Gemini streaming device from the company, in which case the service is called “DIRECTV via Internet.”