No holiday Dish

Fee dispute may affect Thanksgiving TV for South Florida viewers.

Will thousands of South Florida Dish Network subscribers have to leave their homes on Thanksgiving to watch the Los Angeles Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys play?

The Fort Lauderdale-Miami market is one of 18 markets that have lost access to their local CBS station, which is WFOR-Ch. 4 in Doral.

The blackout stems from a dispute over fees between satellite TV provider Dish and CBS Corp., which owns stations in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other markets. Three CBS cable channels CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel and Pop are also affected by the dispute.

“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.

The outage began at 11 p.m. PST on Monday 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

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

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 per year in retransmission fees for its stations by 2020 — up from $250 million per 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.

AP/FILE A South Florida fans of Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott who have satellite TV provider Dish may have to find an alternate way to see the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day.

AP/FILE Dallas is one of the NFL teams that traditionally plays on Thanksgiving Day. The Chargers play at the Cowboys at 4 p.m. on CBS on Thursday.