Tegna channels return to Dish after new carriage deal reached

Dish Network and U.S. broadcast television station group Tegna have been at odds for months but now the companies have reached a new carriage agreement.

With the new deal in place, all 64 Tegna-owned stations will be restored to Dish TV, the company’s satellite TV service.

“We are pleased to announce that we have reached a new agreement with Dish, restoring our valuable and important live local news, live local and national sports and highly popular network content to Dish TV subscribers,” said Lynn Beall, executive vice president and chief operating officer, media operations, for Tegna. “We appreciate the patience of our viewers while we worked toward reaching an agreement.”

"We're pleased to have reached an agreement in time for the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl that benefits all parties, especially our customers," said Brian Neylon, group president at Dish TV, in a statement. "I want to thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we worked through the negotiations."

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Dish and Tegna were unable to agree to new terms for a carriage renewal in early October and it resulted in nearly 3 million Dish TV customers in 53 markets losing access to broadcast channels including networks affiliated with CBS, Fox, NBC and others.

The standoff led to Dish filing a complaint with the FCC and accusing Tegna of turning its back on its public interest obligation as a broadcaster. Tegna responded with a counter-complaint.

“As we speak, millions of Dish customers are being deprived of valued local and national news, weather coverage, NFL and college football and top-rated entertainment shows. Instead of working to restore our programming, Dish is abusing the FCC’s processes and, more importantly, wasting their customers’ time with baseless complaints,” said Tegna in a statement. “Our response and cross-complaint show that it is Dish which has acted in bad faith, not only by obstructing negotiations over many months but also through the distortions it has presented to the public and the FCC.”