News Press and Gazette Dispute

[Richfunb]

Hear we go again. News Press and Gazette, owner of 18 stations, is running a crawl at the bottom of the screen stating that it has been negotiating with DirecTV since September and has set a deadline for a new carriage contract for next Monday, December 16. NPG and DirecTV had a similar dispute last year and it appears they only signed a one year agreement. My local station, KRDO in Colorado Springs, is an ABC affiliate and we would lose that programming over the Christmas Holiday.

Our current agreement expires December 16, 2019 at 5 pm CST. News-Press & Gazette began negotiating with DirecTV/U-Verse in September and we have provided multiple extensions of our current agreement in an effort to come to terms. News-Press & Gazette is seeking market terms for continued carriage on DirecTV and U-Verse’s systems. If we are unable to come to an agreement DirecTV and U-Verse will cease carrying our stations.

 

[raoul5788]

IOW, News-Press will pull the stations.

 

[Claude Greiner]

The locals should be happy cable companies want their station on their lineup.

Does anyone know if there still must carry stations? Or are they all demanding money these days?

 

[slice1900]

Non-commercial stations (such as PBS and some religious channels) can't seek retransmission consent and must elect must carry status.

 

[Jimbo]

Hear we go again. News Press and Gazette, owner of 18 stations, is running a crawl at the bottom of the screen stating that it has been negotiating with DirecTV since September and has set a deadline for a new carriage contract for next Monday, December 16. NPG and DirecTV had a similar dispute last year and it appears they only signed a one year agreement. My local station, KRDO in Colorado Springs, is an ABC affiliate and we would lose that programming over the Christmas Holiday.




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Our current agreement expires December 16, 2019 at 5 pm CST. News-Press & Gazette began negotiating with DirecTV/U-Verse in September and we have provided multiple extensions of our current agreement in an effort to come to terms. News-Press & Gazette is seeking market terms for continued carriage on DirecTV and U-Verse’s systems. If we are unable to come to an agreement DirecTV and U-Verse will cease carrying our stations.

Being around Christmas time is EXACTLY why they chose to have it expire at this time, built in negotiating ploy.

Btw, it's not ANOTHER dispute ...
There are 1000's of local channels (ok, not 1000's but you get what I'm saying), they can't all expire at the same time so having Someone expire each month would be the norm.