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DISH chooses to black out all Cox Media Group TV stations across the country
On Monday, DISH unilaterally chose to black out all Cox Media Group (CMG) TV stations across the country, including WPXI-TV, after deploying its well-worn anti-consumer drop tactic. With this move, DISH has once again punished its own customers and WPXI-TV’s consumers by depriving them of access to critical local news, emergency weather and traffic information, popular sports and other local and national network programming.
“DISH is infamously unreasonable and difficult to deal with in retransmission consent and all other content negotiations. In their latest example, DISH has refused to make any meaningful offer to continue carriage of CMG’s award-winning local news, investigative journalism, popular sports and entertainment content. This has undercut both local broadcasting and its own customers,” said Paul Curran, EVP of Television, Cox Media Group. “Let me be clear – despite their numerous false claims, it was solely DISH’s decision to remove CMG’s best-in-class TV stations from its service. To keep our stations on the DISH platform, we offered DISH an extension of our current agreement with no strings attached, but DISH refused. We’re simply asking DISH to agree to a fair-market deal that is consistent to what their competitors have agreed without any interruption of service to consumers.”
CMG has repeatedly asked DISH to continue carrying the stations while CMG negotiates in good faith toward a fair-market deal. DISH has refused to negotiate in good faith and declined to keep the stations on air while working towards a deal. DISH has now delivered on its obvious goal from the outset to black out CMG’s stations from its lineup.
DISH has a long history of harming its customers by using blackouts against local broadcasters and other content providers. DISH is responsible for the highest blackout rates among distributors of local broadcast stations and other content. DISH’s latest drop comes just two years after it blacked out CMG stations for eight months, as well as numerous other content drops by DISH since then.
“Despite DISH’s many false claims, we remain willing to negotiate in good faith,” Curran said. “We once again call on DISH to stop its tired anti-consumer approach and get serious about reaching a fair agreement for CMG TV stations. It’s time for DISH to restore our critical news, information, sports and entertainment programming to the viewers in the communities we serve who subscribe to DISH for CMG’s valuable content.”
DISH customers who are disappointed and frustrated by DISH’s latest stunt to deprive them of vital programming should switch TV providers now. All CMG stations are available on all other major TV providers. They should also contact DISH to make their voices heard by calling DISH at 1-800-333-3474 and urging them to restore the stations now and engage with CMG in good faith for ongoing carriage of CMG’s vital programming.
https://www.wpxi.com/dish/