As was warned on the website of Raycom Media stations including CBS affiliate WOIO/19 and MyNetwork TV affiliate WUAB/43, those stations can no longer be seen on DirecTV.
Welcome to yet another Retransmission Consent Battle, which means those who have the largest satelllite TV provider can’t see things like, well, Sunday’s Cleveland Browns opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers…unless the dispute is resolved. (The screenshot is courtesy of OMW reader Rob McPherson on Twitter.)
Here’s a clip from Raycom’s statement:
For three months Raycom Media has been working with DirecTV to resolve this issue, so that DirecTV may continue to lawfully provide local news, weather sports and network programming to our viewers.
Because we have been unable to reach an agreement with DirecTV, Raycom Media stations are no longer available to DirecTV customers after August 31st, 2014.
According to Raycom Media President and CEO Paul McTear, “This is frustrating for DirecTV customers who rely on Raycom stations for information and entertainment. We share their frustration and are committed to doing everything we can to resolve this issue and have been for the last 12 weeks of discussions.”
The satcaster’s DirecTVPromise site has a generic menu item for “Local Stations”, with this section under “Negotiations”:
DIRECTV pays programmers fees to carry their networks or local stations. When contracts come to an end, we negotiate new agreements, and the vast majority of the time you never hear about them. But sometimes programmers demand an increase that’s two, three, and even 10 times more what they’ve ever received before – and all for the exact same channels. We believe it’s our responsibility to take a stand and protect you from these excessive price increases so you don’t see an unnecessary increase to your family’s monthly bill.
DirecTV also is telling subscribers:
“Fewer people watch shows on local stations than ever before, but broadcasters continue to demand everyone pay more to get the few shows they do watch.”
The bottom line is that Raycom and all over-air broadcasters want higher retransmission consent fees, and all the cable/satellite operators hope to hold the line on these rising fees.
It’s a big pipeline of money in these days of softer advertising, and in most cases, the broadcasters can correctly say that satellite/cable operators pay more money for non-broadcast networks than for popular over-air network affiliates.
The satellite or cable subscriber?
They don’t care. They just want CBS (or MyNetwork TV) in this case, back.
The options are the usual. Most satellite receivers support some sort of over-air tuner (an extra option in some cases) that will return the missing stations to the receiver.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is something regular readers here already know…the anemic VHF 10 signal of WOIO is hard to pick up in areas even in Cuyahoga County.
Those to the south of Cleveland, particularly in the Akron area, have some relief due to WOIO’s UHF 24 digital low-power repeater in the Akron antenna farm.
But…we’re back to the equipment again. That equipment being not only some sort antenna that a satellite subscriber may not have, or an adapter to add the over-air channels if it’s not already built into the receivers.
Historically, major sporting events have driven at least slightly quicker resolutions to such disputes.
In this case, though, Raycom’s mainly smaller market station roster means (as far as we can tell) that Cleveland is its only market with a network carrying its home NFL team’s games affected. (The dispute also affects one other other Raycom Ohio station, Toledo’s CBS affiliate WTOL/11.)
Raycom owns WBTV/3 in Charlotte, another CBS affiliate, but the hometown Carolina Panthers are in the National Football Conference…which means the bulk of their games are carried on Fox O&O WJZY/46 in that market.
Will the pressure from football fans in its largest market drive Raycom to make a quicker resolution to this dispute, perhaps before Sunday afternoon?
We don’t know.
We do know that depending on viewer location and antenna placement, many in the Cleveland/Akron (Canton) TV market can pick up LIN/Media General’s WKBN/27, Youngstown’s CBS affiliate, even if they can’t snag WOIO’s over-air signal.
And the Raycom stations remind viewers that local news can be streamed on station websites (19ActionNews.com here, of course), and network programming can be streamed as well via, in this case, CBS.com…and of course, the latest local update on WOIO’s website provides a helpful list of alternate pay TV providers…
Did Ch 19’s power increase application ever get approved, or implemented? It’s still spotty … If Ch 8 is not going back to 31, couldn’t 19 apply for it? And, why can’t 19 air the games on 43, which has a MUCH better signal ???