The FCC might be taking its first baby steps towards doing something about the ugly retransmission consent space, but that doesn't mean much to Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH) subscribers across 17 markets who will see their Fox, CW, CBS, ABC or MyNetwork stations go dark tonight if the satellite provider can't work out a deal with LIN Media.
The two sides, at least according to the latest reports, are at loggerheads and the end of signals--for an indeterminate period of time--looks imminent. The rhetoric isn't encouraging.
"We've negotiated contracts with over 1,000 stations every week in the last few years and what they're asking for is an unprecedented rate demand," Dish spokesman Marc Lumpkin told the Fort Wayne, Ind. Journal Gazette. Nonsense, said local TV broadcast general manager Alan Riebe of WANE: "What we're asking for is far less than what they pay the cable channels."
For more:
- the Journal Gazette has this story
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