We want to share the latest about the ongoing negotiations with Nexstar Media Group as part of our commitment to be transparent throughout the temporary programming outage.
Key Takeaways
- Nexstar continues to hold your local news and sports hostage since our expiration on July 2 to secure double the rates for the same programming that’s free over-the-air today.
- DIRECTV remains at the negotiating table to protect you from unwarranted rate increases while Nexstar drags its feet harming viewers, investors, local stations and the industry in the process.
- Nexstar’s greed could impact some upcoming hometown games, and DIRECTV is offering affected customers relief for this temporary inconvenience.
What’s the latest?
Nexstar Media Group, the nation’s largest local broadcaster operating 200 local TV stations in 116 metro areas across the U.S., continues to seek rates that are more than double what DIRECTV customers previously paid for the same programming that’s free over-the-air today.
Since our contract expired in early July, Nexstar has made little movement on its end while DIRECTV continues to make substantial offers to try to find middle ground with the goal of returning local news and sports programming to our affected customers as quickly as possible and at the right value.
What has DIRECTV offered Nexstar?
To best serve our customers, while we negotiate, we continue to seek an extension through February 2024, which would allow DIRECTV customers to continue to watch Nexstar-owned stations while guaranteeing Nexstar payment at the new higher contract rates upon a deal. Unfortunately, Nexstar is fixated on an extension set to expire on Oct. 31, which risks another outage in the middle of the college and Pro football seasons, not to mention giving them maximum leverage to drive the highest renewal rates. This isn’t new for Nexstar, in fact, they ran the same plays when they forced outages with DISH in Dec. 2020 and Verizon in Oct. 2022.
What should DIRECTV customers do about access to upcoming football games?
While we’re working around the clock to restore the affected stations by the start of the upcoming football season, Nexstar’s greed could force the outage into the start of the football seasons affecting some customers who won’t be able watch their hometown teams.
Fortunately, many of the professional and college sports are available on popular streaming platforms (i.e., CBS on Paramount+, NBC on Peacock, and others) and through over-the-air antenna options starting at $20.
What is DIRECTV doing for affected customers?
Our commitment is to deliver the programming you want at the right long-term value.
While we remain at the negotiating table cutting the fat from Nexstar’s proposals to focus on restoring the networks and fighting for reasonable rates that align with the value of Nexstar programming, affected customers can visit TVPromise.com for assistance.
