ATLANTA—Cox Media Group (CMG) has announced that DirecTV removed all Cox Media Group (CMG) TV stations from its lineups after the two parties were unable to reach a new retransmission consent agreement. The old one expired on Feb. 2.
Cox said DirecTV had refused its offer to extend negotiations.
DirecTV said Cox Media Group (CMG) pulled its 12 stations from DirecTV, DirecTV Stream, and U-verse customers in 9 metro areas after rejecting the latest extension offer on the table while both sides continue to work to reach a new agreement.
“While we’ve been signing dozens of fair-market carriage deals that bring our high-quality programming to more than 50 million viewers, DirecTV has been dropping hundreds of TV stations and depriving its customers of the local content they want and paid DirecTV for,” said Marian Pittman, executive vice president of CMG. “Now DirecTV is at it again. We call on DirecTV to stop holding viewers hostage to its anti-consumer agenda.”
“CMG is proud of our commitment to investing in high-quality local news and investigative journalism,” Pittman continued. DirecTV’s actions threaten those investments and hurt consumers who rely on us for local news, weather, and a robust slate of sports and other popular entertainment programming. Dropping CMG stations and blocking viewers from accessing local news and programming is DirecTV’s latest bullying tactic to try to harm local journalism.”
“We remain committed to negotiating in good faith to secure a fair carriage agreement with DirecTV, just as we’ve done with dozens of other TV providers that continue to deliver our award-winning stations to their customers,” Pittman added.
In a statement on its website, DirecTV said that: "[t]his is an unfortunate and all too familiar path for CMG, which pulled its signals from DirecTV in its last renewal in 2021, agreeing to restore its stations just hours before the 2021 Super Bowl. CMG has also been down on Dish since November 2022, as well as threatened or pulled its signals from Comcast (Jan. 2020), Dish (March-April 2016 and Jan. 2020) DirecTV (Jan. 2017 and Jan.-Feb. 2021) Frontier (Jan. 2018), FuboTV (Feb. 2023), Suddenlink (Jan. 2021) and others."
"CMG is playing chicken with the industry, willfully ignoring the economics that its programming does not warrant a double-digit annual rate increase on top of an already exorbitant fee structure," the statement continued. "By pulling its stations, CMG intends to penalize its viewers twice – once when pulling the programming and again when they return it at an unwarranted higher rate – adding insult to injury. This is another clear example that underscores the need for a new path forward to combat rising retransmission rates, which have increased 270% since 2015 as detailed in the proposal from DIRECTV."
"DirecTV is committed to working towards a new agreement that will align the value and quality customers receive with the price they pay," the statement concluded.
