Dish Network has dropped Cox Media Group stations in nine markets from its satellite TV service, after the parties failed to negotiate a new carriage deal Monday evening.
According to Dish, Cox is “demanding” a “massive” retransmission fee increase that would result in Dish TV customers paying more to access Cox’s local channels.
"Cox's refusal to negotiate in good faith and subsequently forcing a blackout of its stations for Dish customers is deplorable," said Dish TV Group President Brian Neylon in a statement. "Cox is demanding an exorbitant rate increase, negotiating for channels it does not yet own and insists on payment from customers who do not subscribe to local broadcasting, even as it continues to underinvest in local programming.”
Neylon added Cox’s viewership on Dish has “declined for years” and that Cox is trying to make up for those losses by “demanding increased rates of nearly 75 percent from Dish customers.”
Dish and Cox’s last carriage dispute was in July 2020 and lasted approximately five months.
Cox also issued a statement on Monday, saying it has “repeatedly” asked Dish to continue carrying its stations while the companies work towards a new agreement.
“Dish is infamously unreasonable and difficult to deal with in retransmission consent and all other content negotiations,” stated Paul Curran, EVP of television at Cox Media Group. “In their latest example, Dish has refused to make any meaningful offer to continue carriage of CMG’s award-winning local news, investigative journalism, popular sports and entertainment content.”
“Let me be clear – despite their numerous false claims, it was solely Dish’s decision to remove CMG’s best-in-class TV stations from its service,” Curran went on to say, adding Cox is asking Dish to agree to a “fair-market deal” that’s consistent with what the satellite provider has offered its competitors.
The spat with Cox is just the latest in Dish’s recent round of carriage disputes. Dish a few weeks ago pulled four Standard Media stations from its pay TV lineup. In October, Dish blacked out Disney-owned networks across both satellite and Sling TV for a couple of days, before the companies reached a temporary deal.
As carriage disputes rise, so do prices for broadcast and cable packages. Ars Technica suggested that Comcast, which recently announced price hikes for its Broadcast TV plan across several markets, is advertising lower prices than what its customers actually pay. Comcast has said those price increases are based on amounts that “broadcast stations charge us to carry them on our cable systems.”
“It's true that Comcast has to pay retransmission consent fees to carry the stations, even though stations can be accessed for free over the air with an antenna,” wrote Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin. “But the sneaky manner in which Comcast and other cable companies pass those costs on to customers can lead to bill shock and unexpected price increases.”