DirecTV customers in Hampton Roads lost access to WVEC-TV
‘Tis the season for media conglomerates to tussle, apparently.
Dish Network customers aren’t the only ones to find blacked-out screens when clicking over to local content. Due to yet another fight over financial matters, Hampton Roads DirecTV customers can’t tune into WVEC-TV for the time being.
The satellite television carrier said a disagreement with WVEC’s owners, Tegna, is to blame.
“We’re working to re t urn the TEGNA stations to our lineups as soon as possible, but by law, TEGNA has exclusive control over which homes are allowed to receive either ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, or CW in certain cities, regardless of what provider they choose,” a statement from DirecTV’s owner, AT&T, reads.
In the statement, AT&T claimed Tegna is using the blackouts as leverage to raise the rates that satellite and cable companies must pay, which in turn increases subscription prices for their customers.
DirecTV customers can get up-to-date information on the disagreement and channel outages by visiting att.com/tvpromise.
Dish Network customers in Hampton Roads who tried to tune into WAVY10 or WVBT-43 found the channels had disappeared at 7 p.m. Wednesday just before prime-time programming would begin. Until Dish and Nexstar can agree on how much the former will pay the latter for its content, Dish customers won’t have access to either channel.
As of publication, negotiations between Dish and Nexstar remained stagnant. Dish customers can get the latest updates at my.dish.com/promise.