If you’re a Dish TV subscriber whose local NBC affiliate is owned by Tegna, you’re breathing a sigh of relief as you’ll be able to watch the Olympics and Super Bowl LVI now that the two entities have come to an agreement following a four-month carriage dispute.
“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement in time for the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl that benefits all parties, especially our customers,” Brian Neylon, group president, DISH TV, said in a statement. “I want to thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we worked through the negotiations.”
We are pleased to announce that DISH and TEGNA have reached a multi-year agreement and your local channel has been restored.
Thank you for your patience and support. pic.twitter.com/7WrlpHwiKp— DISH (@dish) February 4, 2022
Lynn Beall, executive vice president and COO, media operations at Tegna said in a statement, “we are pleased to announce that we have reached a new agreement with DISH, restoring our valuable and important live local news, live local and national sports, and highly popular network content to DISH TV subscribers. We appreciate the patience of our viewers while we worked toward reaching an agreement.”
The dispute, which started in October, saw Tegna’s 64 stations across 51 U.S. markets disappear from Dish. This includes stations in Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington.
At the time, Dish released a statement saying Tegna was “using customers as negotiation leverage, demanding a massive fee increase to nearly a billion dollars and holding viewers hostage during football season.” Both companies filed claims of ‘bad faith’ negotiating with the Federal Communications Commission, but no action was taken.
20 of Tegna’s local TV stations have a primary affiliation with NBC, which means that subscribers in those markets would not have been able to watch the Olympics or Super Bowl LVI without extra subscriptions, apps, or services had the agreement not been reached. Now, all of Tegna’s local stations have been restored on Dish TV.
Terms from the new multi-year agreement have not been made public.
In December 2020, Tegna resolved a similar dispute with DirecTV and U-Verse following a few weeks.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.