Dish Refused Temporary Extension Offer Before Retrans Blackout, Says Raycom

Dish Network refused Raycom’s offer of a temporary extension of their retransmission consent agreement that would have temporarily prevented a blackout, said Raycom Senior Vice President Jeff Rosser in an interview Thursday. Starting at just past midnight Thursday morning -- the end of the previous retrans agreement -- Raycom stopped allowing Dish to carry its broadcasts. Dish blamed Raycom for the blackout. “Unfortunately, the broadcaster has not been willing to pursue an agreement that would have avoided this disruption of service to our customers and Raycom viewers,” said Dish in a news release Thursday. Dish didn’t comment on the proposed extension.

Although neither company has released information about specific retrans fee proposals, Dish said Raycom wants the DBS provider to pay four times the amount in their previous carriage deal, a number Raycom disputes. Both sides said they're asking for a rate comparable to the industry standard. “DISH has offered to pay Raycom the same rates as our primary competitors; yet Raycom has stalled negotiations, refusing to accept that fair offer,” said Dish Director of Programming Sruta Vootukuru in a release. “DISH has been paying rates significantly less that what others are paying,” said Rosser. “We're simply trying to get those rates to a level similar to other agreements."

Although it’s unclear how long the blackout will last, Garvey Schubert cable lawyer Bruce Beckner said Raycom is likely to eventually “win” the dispute, because broadcasters generally come out ahead in retrans consent disputes. “At least, the numbers at the end are generally closer to what the broadcaster is looking for,” said Beckner, who’s not associated with either company and who has worked on other retrans agreements.

Broadcasters tend to win retrans disputes because it’s relatively easy for multichannel video programming distributor customers to simply change providers, and when they do, they're generally “sticky,” he said. “Once a customer changes to a new [provider], they don’t usually come back,” he said. Raycom has already begun encouraging its customers who use Dish to sign up with other services, using messages in the company’s crawls, commercials and its website, Rosser said. “It’s always a public relations war,” said Beckner.

The retrans dispute between Dish and Raycom affects various Big Four network affiliates in mainly southern states such as Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Stations in Hawaii, Ohio and Arizona and some CW and MyNetworkTV stations are also affected.