Millions of Dish customers lose CBS ahead of big football day
Nearly 3 million Dish Network subscribers in 18 cities 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 is set to broadcast the NFL matchup between the Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
The outage began Tuesday 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
“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 pay-TV 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.