TYSONS CORNER, Va. & DALLAS—Tegna stations in 51 markets have gone dark for AT&T DirecTV and U-Verse customers, as the two sides were unable to reach a retransmission agreement. The blackout officially began at 7 p.m. ET on Dec. 1.
Tegna has 64 stations in the 51 markets impacted by this blackout, which reach 41.7 million TV households.
“Unfortunately, DirecTV AT&T U-Verse have not come to an agreement with Tegna to keep our stations on the air,” Tegna said via a statement on Twitter. The statement also instructed customers can still watch its stations on other local providers or streaming services, as well as for free over-the-air.
“We’re working to return the Tegna stations to our lineups as soon as possible, but by law, Tegna has exclusive control over which homes are allowed to receive either ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox or CW in certain cities, regardless of what provider they choose,” AT&T said in a posting about the blackout to customers.
AT&T says that Tegna is asking for “unwarranted increases over their already high fees” and accused the network of taking advantage of its viewers during a pandemic.
Tegna, inversely, says that it has been able to strike deals with other cable and satellite providers without disruption of services.
This is not the only retransmission dispute in danger of blacking out stations; Nexstar and Dish are currently on the brink of a blackout as well.
