Nexstar Media Group and Verizon on Friday reached a multi-year distribution agreement, bringing an end to a two-week blackout of stations for Fios customers in 10 markets.
The new deal includes 13 local TV stations and national cable news network NewsNation. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The channels had been pulled from Verizon’s system since October 14 as the parties couldn’t reach a retransmission consent agreement.
In a statement Friday, Nexstar said the deal means more than 3 million Verizon Fios subscribers will again have access to network and local entertainment, live sports and news programming.
“The agreement will ensure that Verizon subscribers won’t miss a moment of Major League Baseball’s World Series, which begins tonight, or any of this weekend’s college and NFL Football games,” Nexstar stated.
Verizon happened to report third quarter earnings as the channel blackout was still ongoing, recording Fios pay TV subscriber losses of 95,000 in period.
Retrans disputes crop up during negotiations as contracts come up for renewal. Kagan principal analyst Justin Nielson, in an October 26 S&P Capital IQ broadcast investor note regarding separate retrans disputes involving DirecTV, wrote that “broadcasters are continuing to ask for higher retrans rates in retrans renewals to offset the shift of household viewing habits and subscription dollars to streaming services,” which often leads to contentious renewal negotiations.
In a research note just ahead of the Nexstar channels being pulled from Fios, Nielson estimated that those 14 stations brought in $377.6 million in gross retrans revenue, for an average of $4.19 per subscriber per month.
Reaching an agreement means that one of three ongoing retrans negotiation disputes has been resolved. Two others involving DirecTV and White Knight Broadcasting and Mission Broadcasting (which are Nexstar partners under shared services/joint sales agreements) remain ongoing. Those disputes saw stations pulled from the satellite TV provider’s systems last weekend, as well as DirecTV Stream and U-Verse, impacting an estimated 1.3 million customers (read here for the latest on that situation).
Before Nexstar made the announcement with Verizon, Nielson said all three were likely to be resolved soon, as it impacts Verizon and DirecTV’s subscribers’ access to local news and sports, potentially leading to customers switching providers.
“It is also disrupting Nexstar, Mission and White Knight's advertising revenue potential at a reduced video sub penetration in those Verizon and AT&T overlapping markets,” Nielson noted.