DIRECTV Sues Nexstar, Claiming Collusion With Owners of Local Stations to Manipulate Retransmission Fees

The relationship between pay-TV distributors and local channels can get complicated, and sometimes messy. DIRECTV and Nexstar, the largest television station owner in the United States, are certainly relearning that lesson now. DIRECTV has filed a lawsuit against Nexstar in U.S. District Court, claiming the company is colluding with smaller station owners to manipulate retransmission fees.

DIRECTV alleges that Nexstar has conspired with Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting, two smaller independent station owners. The claim is that these three station owners are violating federal law that prohibits station owners from having two or more stations in a designated market if their service areas overlap.

The satellite TV company provided a list of ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates across the country that it claims have been affected by this scheme. All of these affiliates are blacked out to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and U-Verse customers in these markets, as the company has refused to pay the higher retransmission fees it alleges Nexstar, White Knight, and Mission colluded to demand.

Among several other examples, the suit alleges that the trio of station owners routinely share confidential rates and other financial information through a single agent who can’t keep the details of one contract straight from another, closely align their respective blackout dates, and duplicate their public responses to the media to manipulate viewers and betray the public trust once they unilaterally pull their station signals.

A Nexstar spokesperson said this week that the three companies “are in full compliance with FCC rules, and each station group independently negotiates its own retransmission consent agreements with its cable, satellite, and telco partners.”

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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.”

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DIRECTV STREAM starts at $79.99 / month for their Entertainment package. You can upgrade to their Choice package, which begins at $108.99 / month, that includes your local RSN and HBO Max for three months. They also have an Ultimate ($119.99) for 130 channels and Premier ($164.99) for 140 channels. In addition to not having a contract, there are no extra RSN fees or Broadcast TV fee.

The service includes an Unlimited DVR on all packages and unlimited simultaneous at-home streams.

The service was previously called AT&T TV.

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This is not the only dispute over fees that DIRECTV is currently mired in. The satellite provider also finds itself in a carriage dispute with right-wing news outlet Newsmax, and has dropped its linear channel NewsmaxTV over a refusal to pay what it considers an exorbitant carriage fee.

More carriage disputes of this nature are cropping up all over the pay-TV ecosystem. fuboTV recently dropped local CBS in more than 150 markets in the U.S., though a new deal between the network and the live TV streaming service is making its way to affiliates for approval now.

No such deal has been struck between Hulu and Sinclair Broadcasting Group, however. Sinclair owns a set of 34 ABC affiliates that were recently removed from Hulu + Live TV in a similar quarrel, and there is currently no timetable for their return.

As cord-cutting accelerates across the United States, and the world, there will be more of these types of disputes and allegations between media companies. Each is trying to bring in as much profit as it can before pay TV is gone forever, and they don’t mind stepping on each others’ toes if it means the possibility of scraping up a million dollars more here or there.

What Local Channels Are Involved in DIRECTV’s Lawsuit?