DISH Says Sinclair Chooses To Initiate Local Channel Blackout

(RTTNews) - DISH Network (DISH) said that, despite reaching an agreement on rates and all other terms for the carriage of the Sinclair local stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. chose to begin the largest local channel blackout in the history of television, blocking DISH customers' access to 129 local channels in 79 markets across 36 states and the District of Columbia, and intentionally harming and exploiting millions of consumers to gain negotiating leverage for carriage of an unrelated cable channel that it hopes to acquire but does not own today.

"We have agreed to rates and all terms to carry Sinclair's local stations. But Sinclair is blacking out 129 local stations in an effort to negotiate a carriage agreement for an unrelated cable channel that it hopes to acquire, but does not own today," said Warren Schlichting, DISH senior vice president of programming.

Schlichting said, "Sinclair rejected our extension offer and has chosen to use innocent consumers as pawns to gain leverage for the economic benefit of Sinclair, while causing substantial harm and disruption to the lives of consumers."

DISH said that the company and Sinclair had been making steady progress in their recent negotiations, and DISH was hopeful that they would come to a mutual agreement to renew carriage of the Sinclair local stations. In that spirit, DISH offered another short-term contract extension to Sinclair that would include a retroactive "true-up" when new rates were agreed upon, and would preserve the ability of DISH customers to access the Sinclair local stations while or negotiations continued. The "true-up" would ensure that Sinclair was made whole at the new rates for the period of any contract extension.

DISH filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission or FCC on August 15 urging the FCC to intervene to protect consumers from the actions of Sinclair.

DISH noted that it intends to amend the complaint to include allegations stemming from Sinclair's decision to blackout local channels to millions of innocent consumers to gain negotiating leverage for carriage of an unrelated cable channel that it hopes to acquire but does not own today.

DISH extended its contract with 23 local non-Sinclair controlled stations for which Sinclair had been attempting to negotiate.