Charter blacked out by 11 Northwest Broadcasting affiliates

Eleven Northwest Broadcasting affiliates were blacked out over the weekend on Charter Communications, blocking Sunday’s Super Bowl for subscribers in Yuma, Arizona; Eureka, California; and Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Both sides released statements in the broadcast retransmission impasse first reported by blogger Phillip Swan.  

Affected stations not only included KPVI-TV in Idaho Falls, KYMA-TV in Yuma and KIEM-TV in Eureka, but also: CBS affiliates KSWT-TV in Yuma and KVIQ-TV in Eureka, California; Fox affiliates KAYU-TV in Spokane, Washington; WYT-TV in Syracuse, New York; WICZ-TV in Binghamton, New York; KFFX-TV in Medford, Oregon; and KFFX-TV in Yakima, Washington.

“Northwest is demanding a ridiculous increase in programming fees—over 75%,” Charter said on a website “northwestfairdeal.com," which was specifically set up to fight the retrans battle. 

RELATED: Cable One and Northwest end blackout

“They are demanding to be paid more than what we pay any other broadcast station for the same services,” Charter added. “This is simply how Northwest operates. They have pulled their channels from nearly all distributors over the recent years as a negotiating tactic.”

Based in Okemos, Michigan, Northwest operates 12 stations in six markets. 

“We apologize for not being available on Spectrum cable,” the station group said in a statement. “We offered to extend our current agreement, and Spectrum took us off the air unexpectedly. We are however still available over the air with an antenna,” the broadcaster stated.

Northwest engaged Cable One in a monthlong retrans blackout a year ago.