Univision has gone dark in the homes of Verizon FiOS customers amid a contract dispute between the two sides that just couldn’t be worked out. [More]
blackouts
Dish Solves Pending Channel Blackout By Giving Its Customers TV Antennas
By 8.17.17
While it’s news to some consumers that they can, in fact, watch their local news without a pay-TV subscription, carriers like Dish know perfectly well that over-the-air antennas work. And the company, apparently sick of paying retransmission fees in one market, appears to be using those antennas to call a network’s bluff. [More]
Univision Blackout Ends For Charter Customers… For Now
By 3.7.17
A month after Univision first pulled its programming from Charter-Spectrum as the result of a contract dispute, the two sides have agreed to kiss and make up — for the time being, anyway — to prevent any further channel blackouts. [More]
Univision Pulls Channels From Charter-Spectrum Lineup
By 2.1.17
A nasty battle between the nation’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster and the second-largest cable company has resulted in Univision pulling its channels from millions of Charter-Spectrum customers. [More]
Millions Of Charter Customers Could Start 2017 Without NBC Channels
By 12.30.16
Were you hoping to catch the big game on Sunday night between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions on NBC, a game that has major playoff implications? Or perhaps you wanted to settle down and tune in while some Real Housewives stars throw wine at each other on Bravo? If you’re one of 16 million or so Charter Spectrum customers, your plans might be foiled by a contract dispute between the cable company and NBCUniversal. [More]
Are You Entitled To A Refund After A Cable/Satellite Blackout? Probably Not
By 10.21.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
It seems like every time a major pay-TV company has to renew its contract with a big cable/broadcast network, customers have to sit through ugly media campaigns from both sides threatening blackouts. Those shutdowns are usually averted at the last minute, but if they happen they can last weeks or even months. When that happens, are you due a refund? Maybe you feel like you do, but a recent federal court ruling casts doubt on the likelihood of you ever getting anything. [More]
Dish Sues NBC For Blabbing Publicly About Looming Blackout
By 3.15.16
It’s not uncommon for TV networks and pay-TV operators to get into very public spats about contract negotiations and looming blackouts, but the folks at Dish say that NBCUniversal crossed the line this week in going public about its ongoing contract dispute with the satellite company. [More]
Contract Dispute Blacks Out Yankees’ Network For New York Area Comcast Subscribers
By 11.18.15
Two of the entities America most loves to hate — Comcast and the New York Yankees — are now duking it out in the Big Apple, as a cable contract carriage fee dispute results in yet another channel blackout. [More]
Dish, Sinclair End Broadcast Network Blackout… For Now, At Least
By 8.27.15
Dish’s latest contract fight with the networks it airs has wrapped up much more quickly than usual: less than a day after nearly 130 Sinclair channels went dark on the satellite provider, the local channels are back on in 5 million subscribers’ homes. At least, for now. [More]
Hundreds Of Local Channels Go Dark For Millions Of Dish Subscribers In Latest TV Blackout Fight
By 8.26.15
Dish Network subscribers may have a hard time getting their local news and weather today along with some of their favorite network programming. A contract dispute between the satellite TV company and one of the biggest network owners in the country has resulted in one of the biggest TV blackouts to date, with 5 million viewers losing access to nearly 130 channels. [More]
FCC Proposes Rules To Reduce TV Blackouts, Potentially (But Probably Not) Lower Prices
By 8.14.15
The FCC has proposed a kind of arcane-sounding rule change that on the surface might not seem to affect consumers very much. But if all goes well, the rule will prove to be the kind of upstream change that prevents all the you-know-what from flowing on downhill to everyone else, and makes one of the most annoying things about cable TV into ancient history. [More]
New MLB Commissioner Hopes For In-Market Streaming Of Games This Season
By 4.2.15
As demonstrated by the ongoing SportsNet L.A. debacle in Los Angeles, the shift of most in-market Major League Baseball games from broadcast TV to basic cable has resulted in lots of local fans being unable to watch their favorite teams. And this divide is likely going to expand as younger consumers cut the cable cord or choose to never get cable TV to begin with. New MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred says that reaching these fans is a high priority of his. [More]
NFL Suspending TV Blackout Rule For 2015 Season
By 3.23.15
The country’s most-watched pro sport might be even more watched following an announcement today that the NFL will suspend its television blackout policy for the 2015 season. [More]
Contract Dispute Blacks Out The Weather Channel Again, This Time On FiOS
By 3.10.15
Bad storms are once again brewing for The Weather Channel. The latest in a maelstrom of recent carriage contract disputes has seen the cable standby booted off of Verizon FiOS systems… and there doesn’t appear to be a quick resolution out on the horizon. [More]
DirecTV Benefits From Dish’s Blackouts, Gains 149K Subscribers
By 2.19.15
After six months of losing subscribers, DirecTV bounced back in the last quarter, adding a net 149,000 customers for its satellite TV service. Why the sudden change in fortunes? It has a little something to do with Dish Network’s very public carriage disputes in recent months. [More]
Contract Fight Between Comcast, Estrella TV Highlights Another Reason Why The Mega-Merger Matters
By 2.11.15
There’s another TV contract dispute a-brewing. This one isn’t between a powerhouse cable network and their carrier, though. This time, it’s a fight between a small, Spanish-language broadcast network and everyone’s favorite cable company, Comcast. And while on the one hand the dispute looks to be a completely bog-standard fight about money, it’s also a key example of an often-overlooked aspect of Comcast’s growth and dominance. [More]
Fox News Returns To Dish Network After New Contract Ends Blackout Dispute
By 1.16.15
Consumers don’t usually see all the ins-and-outs of TV negotiations, except when a contract expires and a channel wants more money than a provider is willing to pay. When the fight gets bad enough, the parties go nuclear and a channel gets blacked out. Fox News viewers who subscribe to Dish have seen — or rather, not seen — that blackout up close and personal for the last three weeks, but the feud between the two is now over. [More]
Fox News Blacked Out On Dish Network In Latest Contract Fight
By 12.22.14
It’s a rough year to be a Dish subscriber: networks just keep falling out of the lineup as the satellite TV company ends up in contract disputes with channel after channel. The latest argument has Fox News and Fox Business blacked out on Dish, and the fight looks like it’s just getting started. [More]
