3 million Dish subscribers lose CBS stations in fee dispute

Nearly 3 million Dish Network subscribers in 18 cities, including Los Angeles, have lost access to their local CBS television station — just two days before Thanksgiving, when many Americans want to watch NFL football.

The blackout comes amid a contentious fee dispute between satellite TV provider Dish Network and CBS Corp., which owns the television stations. Customers in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Denver and other markets also were hit by the blackout, which in addition to the local stations includes three CBS cable channels: CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel and Pop.

“Now, Dish subscribers are in jeopardy of being without CBS over the Thanksgiving holiday, which would mean they would miss CBS Sports’ NFL and SEC football coverage beginning Thursday,” CBS said in a statement late Monday.

CBS will broadcast the NFL matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving.

The blackout began at 1 a.m. on Monday. That’s when the companies’ previous carriage contract expired, leaving Dish without authorization to retransmit the signals of CBS stations.

Dish immediately struck back, offering to install an over-the-air antenna for most customers affected by the outage so they could continue to receive CBS. The satellite TV provider also promised to reduce subscribers’ bills by $10 per month if they agreed to drop the local TV stations from their lineup.

Dish blamed the dispute on CBS’ demands for higher

retransmission and cable affiliate fees even as viewership has declined. Such higher broadcast fees are contributing to the steady increases in pay-TV bills. Dish has been struggling to contain programming costs as it loses customers.

“We are actively working to negotiate an agreement that promptly returns this content to Dish’s programming lineup,” Warren Schlichting, Dish’s executive vice president of marketing, programming and media sales, said in a statement.

The Englewood, Colo.based satellite TV company noted that CBS has boasted on its earnings calls with Wall Street analysts that it will generate $2.5 billion a year in retransmission fees for its stations by 2020 — up from $250 million a year in 2012.

“Those desired increases come as Dish customers are watching less CBS,” Dish said in its statement. According to Dish, average viewership for CBS is down 20 percent over the last three years.

Already this year, there have been 212 programming blackouts on various payTV systems — more than double the number from last year, according to the

American Television Alliance, a Washington-based group that represents cable and satellite TV providers. That’s a dramatic rise from 2010, when there were just eight blackouts.