Today, Tegna announced that they may pull their channels from DIRECTV and DIRECTV STREAM. This would remove 68 locals from DIRECTV.
“TEGNA has once again made a private negotiation public in the hopes of creating unnecessary and premature concern among some of our customers to extract higher rates for local broadcast stations. Unfortunately, that’s become the industry norm as the costs for free local stations have soared more than 20 percent year upon year upon year despite declining popularity and less-compelling content. We will continue to meet our customers’ demands for greater choice and value and do our utmost to shield them from unwarranted price hikes as we work with TEGNA to renew its stations without any interruption.” DIRECTV said in a statement to Cord Cutters News.
“We are working hard to reach a fair, market-based agreement with DIRECTV based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach previous deals with DIRECTV and other major providers. Thus far, DIRECTV has refused to agree to such terms, which is why we have begun informing DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse customers that they may lose access to their local TEGNA station and our valuable programming. We hope that DIRECTV is willing to negotiate a market-based deal before the November 30 deadline and doesn’t take away DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse customers’ local news, weather, sports and network programs.” Tegna said in a statement to Cord Cutters News.
Tenga is one of the largest owners of local TV stations in the United States. If this blackout happens, it would be the second time DIRECTV and a major local TV station owner couldn’t reach a deal. Last time DIRECTV reached a deal with a local TV station owner like this it resulted in a price hike a few weeks later.
Cord Cutters News will have full coverage of the contract fight between DIRECTV and Tenga.
This is breaking news more is coming soon.