DIRECTV and Tribune Reach Agreement

**Scott Greczkowski** · 04-04-2012 08:20 PM

DIRECTV and Tribune Reach Agreement For Retransmission of Tribune's Local Channels and WGN America

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- DIRECTV and Tribune have reached a retransmission consent deal for DIRECTV to continue carrying all of Tribune's local stations and WGN America for the next five years. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We're pleased that Tribune and their creditors now recognize that all DIRECTV wanted from day one was to pay fair market rates for their channels," said Derek Chang, executive vice president of Content, Strategy and Development, DIRECTV. "It's unfortunate that Tribune was willing to hold our customers hostage in an attempt to extract excessive rates, but in the end we reached a fair deal at market rates similar to what we originally agreed to on March 29. On behalf of our customers, we are very happy to close the deal and put this behind us."

Tribune restored all of their local signals and WGN America to DIRECTV customers at approximately 9 p.m. ET.

Five million American homes blacked out from their local broadcaster cries out for an examination in Washington, D.C of the decades old telecom law that encourages these impasses.