Nearly 3 million Dish Network customers lose access to CBS

Nearly 3 million Dish Network subscribers in 18 cities, including San Francisco, 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 Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, 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,” the network said late Monday.

CBS is set to broadcast the NFL matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving.

The stations went dark at 11 p.m. Monday. That’s when the companies’ carriage contract expired, leaving Dish without authorization to retransmit CBS signals.

Dish immediately struck back, offering to install an over-the-air antenna for most affected customers 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 the network’s demands for higher retransmission and cable affiliate fees even as the number of viewers 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 satellite TV company noted that CBS has boasted on its earnings calls 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.

This year, there have been 212 programming blackouts on various pay-TV systems — more than double the number from last year, according to the American Television Alliance.