With fees in dispute, television station WFAA blacked out on DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse
A rate disagreement between a television broadcaster and satellite subscription service on Tuesday evening reached a new phase that was visible to people outside the companies.
WFAA-TV became blacked out at 6 p.m. to AT&T providers DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse and continued on Wednesday to be unavailable there.
A spokeswoman for Tegna Inc., which operates WFAA, declined to release the percentage rate change it is seeking to DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse carriage fees.
Tegna stations, which also were blacked out in other markets, offer valuable local news, local and national sports and first-run network content, spokeswoman Anne Bentley said.
In hundreds of other negotiations, Tegna has had three service disruptions with major providers, only one of which lasted more than a few hours, Bentley said.
“Our proposals are in-line with the market, and we see no reason for DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse to be out of line with the rest of the market, or for them to insist that they will need to dramatically increase costs to subscribers if they simply stay in line with the rest of the market,” Bentley wrote in a statement.
WFAA-TV and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram are media partners.
In a statement, AT&T spokesman Jim Kimberly wrote that the company was working to resolve the matter.
“In the midst of an ongoing pandemic, Tegna is demanding the largest rate increase we have ever seen and intentionally blacking out its most loyal viewers. We challenge Tegna to return its local stations immediately while we finalize a new agreement and pledge to pay Tegna retroactively whatever higher rates to which we eventually agree.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 11:19 PM.
