DIRECTV Customers Affected by Nexstar Outage Can Get Bill Credit, but They Have to Sign Up; Here’s How to Do It
There’s never a good way to tell users that they’re about to lose access to their local channels. But DIRECTV is attempting to soften the blow of its latest carriage dispute with Nexstar this week, by giving its customers a way to get $10 off their next monthly bill.
DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and AT&T U-Verse customers can follow this link to be taken to DIRECTV's website that discusses the carriage dispute in detail. It lays out DIRECTV’s position in the dispute, and explains what the company is doing to resolve the outage. At the bottom of the page, customers are prompted to enter their zip code and service to see if their channels are affected.
How to Get $10 off Next Month’s DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM or AT&T U-Verse Bill
- Click here to be taken to the DIRECTV statement.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page, then enter your zip code and type of service and click “Search.”
- An overlay will open that describes which channels are affected in your area.
- Scroll down and click “Redeem here” next to the $10 off your next bill offer.
DIRECTV’s carriage dispute with Nexstar is just the latest between pay-TV providers and major networks or TV station owners. The satellite provider claims that Nexstar is trying to double its carriage fees in the affected markets, and that in order to meet the station owner’s demands it will have to pass the cost onto its customers. Because Nexstar is the largest TV station owner in the country, it can use sledgehammer negotiating tactics with little hesitance.
“Nexstar often uses its market size to demand significant price increases, often leading to temporary disruptions in broadcasting,” DIRECTV says in its statement to customers. “This is a key tactic Nexstar uses with DIRECTV and other pay TV providers to significantly increase how much you pay for the same programming.”
Nexstar, of course, lays the blame for the situation at DIRECTV’s feet, claiming it offered to extend its current deal with the company for another four months. It also argues that it has come to carriage agreements with other live TV streaming services like Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV in recent months, so its retransmission fee demands can’t be that onerous.
As in all such disputes, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. That does little to help the viewers of over 200 stations in more than 100 markets across the United States who are currently missing local channels they’ve already paid for. The discount of $10 for one month is a worthwhile gesture from DIRECTV, but carriage disputes have a way of dragging on for more than 30 days, and the most likely resolution is that DIRECTV agrees to pay Nexstar’s demanded rate. That will likely mean a price increase for DIRECTV users before long.
These disagreements between pay-TV providers and station/network owners are precisely the reason Dish co-founder Charles Ergen called carrying local affiliates “a tax” in February. With fewer customers paying to watch local channels, station owners have to raise carriage fees, passing to the provider the difficult question of hiking prices and losing even more users, or swallowing the fee increase and facing a lower profit margin.
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.”