CT DirecTV subscribers could lose access to Fox61, WCCT
Continued transmission is dependent on stations’ owner, TEGNA, reaching an agreement with DirecTV this week
DirectTV subscribers in Connecticut could lose access to Fox61 and its sister station, WCCT, later this week if the owner of the stations, media giant TEGNA, fails to reach an agreement with satellite television provider DirecTV.
Both Connecticut-based stations began running text-based onscreen graphic messages to viewers during Fox Sports’ college football coverage on Saturday alerting viewers to the possible shutoff. The message said access to the two stations would be lost on Thursday at 8 p.m. if an agreement between Tegna and DirecTV is not reached by then.
TEGNA owns 64 network affiliated television stations in 51 markets, according to a company spokeswoman. The Virginiabased company was created in 2015 when The Gannett Co. spun off its television and digital media operations from its publishing interests.
Both sides in the dispute blame the other for the negotiation standoff.
“We are working hard to reach a fair, market-based agreement with DirecTV based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach previous deals with DirecTV and other major providers,” Anne Bentley, a Tegna spokeswoman said in a statement. “Thus far, DirecTV has refused to agree to such terms, which is why we have begun informing DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse customers that they may lose access to their local TEGNA station and our valuable programming. We hope that DirecTV is willing to negotiate a market-based deal before the November 30 deadline and doesn’t take away DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse customers’ local news, weather, sports and network programs.”
A DirecTV spokesman criticized Tegna officials for making “a private negotiation public in hopes of creating unnecessary and premature concern among Hartford/New Haven customers to try to extract higher rates.”
“Unfortunately, that’s become the industry norm as the costs to retain free local stations have soared more than 20 percent year upon year upon year, despite declining popularity and less-compelling content,” the spokesman said in a statement. “We will continue to meet our local customers’ demands for greater choice and value and do our utmost to shield them from unwarranted price hikes.”
DirecTV officials declined to reveal the number of subscribers the California-based company has in Connecticut.
The public disputes between television content providers and the cable television and streaming service providers that deliver that content to viewers have become almost an annual ritual with only the names of the involved parties changing. This is the fourth contentious retransmission negotiation that Tegna has been involved with since the start of 2022.
In one case, the standoff between Tegna and New Yorkbased Mediacom Communications Corp., the nation’s fifth largest cable operator with 1.5 million customers in 22 states, lasted for a year before being settled in February 2022.