Dish-LIN Retrans Blackout Goes on For Third Day; FCC Keeping Tabs
The contract dispute between Dish Network and LIN TV continued Monday for a third day. The DBS company and broadcaster couldn’t agree to a new retransmission consent deal after the previous one for 27 stations in 17 markets expired Friday night. Some had anticipated LIN’s stations would be pulled from the DBS provider after they blamed each other for contractual differences (CD March 7 p3). The FCC is continuing to keep tabs on the dispute, and continues to signal to the parties it hopes there will be a settlement, agency and industry officials said. “We continue to monitor this closely,” an FCC spokesman said Monday, declining further comment.
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Representatives for both sides kept in touch with Media Bureau officials over the weekend, as they had done last week, giving them periodic updates on where contract talks stood, industry and agency officials said. The bureau officials have encouraged the parties to settle their dispute, without proposing any contractual terms or length, they said. Unlike past retrans disputes that resulted in blackouts, during this one commissioners and their offices have not been getting updates so far from both sides or asking for them, agency officials said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
LIN CEO Vince Sadusky said the company will keep talking with Dish “so we may reach an agreement.” The broadcaster wants “what is fair for our local stations, so that we can continue providing the premium news, sports, entertainment, and other local programming that is most important to viewers,” he said Saturday. A LIN spokeswoman said talks between the company and Dish were continuing as of Monday evening. The commission has been getting some customer compalaints about the blackout, said an agency official.
Dish thinks it “unfortunate” that LIN, “a corporate media conglomerate, pulled its channels down” at 11:59 p.m. Mountain time on Friday, said Senior Vice President Dave Shull. LIN has a stock-market value of around $300 million, while Dish is worth about $10 billion. The blackout is an attempt to “coerce” the DBS company “to submit to outrageous demands,” said Shull. “Even more disappointing is the fact that LIN Media didn’t even make an effort to keep negotiating during the final hours and failed to respond despite our numerous attempts to reach them. LIN Media also refused to grant the contract extension we proposed.” A Dish spokesman had no update on the negotiations.
CBS and other broadcasters have “increased their rhetoric about larger and larger fees” for carriage by pay-TV providers at investor conferences this week, Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett said. He noted the blackout comes after the FCC on Thursday approved a rulemaking notice on retrans. “Before the ink has dried” on that document, “a broadcaster has proven yet again why reform” of the retrans rules “is essential to protect viewers,” said a spokesman for the American Television Alliance. “These bullying tactics will continue until the FCC reforms outdated rules,” said the group, whose members include both DBS companies, both major telco-TV providers and many cable operators.