A letter I emailed to WWMT (Sinclair owned station in my area), not that I think it really makes one bit of difference:
To Whom it may concern...I am beyond disappointed with WWMT and Sinclair Broadcasting Corporation in this retransmission dispute with DirecTV. Sinclair Broadcasting has shown its true colors as a greedy corporation interested not in serving the public properly and reliably, but only in making the short term dollar at the expense of long term viewer loyalty and trust. They attempt to turn DirecTV customers against their provider in this retrans dispute, when the choice to pull WWMT (and indeed all of their 40+ stations across the country) lies solely with Sinclair and their exorbitant demands for increased retransmission fees. Sinclair suggests simply switching providers, which is easier said than done, very inconvenient, and also quite hypocritical considering that Sinclair also had recent retrans disputes with some of the very same providers they are suggesting a switch to (such as DISH, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) It seems rather underhanded that you continue to scroll your "warning" that WWMT will no longer be available to DirecTV viewers (and ONLY DirecTV viewers) beginning March 1st, doing so during the news and other popular CBS shows, attempting to instill fear into viewers so they will do Sinclair's bidding and pester DirecTV. Well, I'm going to pester YOU instead. Many viewers are not as educated on the dispute as I am, and thus would be easily manipulated, as I'm sure Sinclair knows and is trying to use to its advantage. Very unsavory. Channel 3 WWMT has consistently had quality issues in my viewing opinion. They seem to have a poor OTA signal, and one that I cannot consider watchable where I live. I also do not have cable service available to my house. Lucky for me, I will watch the CBS shows I like online and I will skip your inferior newscast, and thus I will take WWMT's advertisers out of the loop entirely. Isn't technology great? I will not inconvenience myself simply to continue viewing WWMT, and I will inform everyone I know of the things I am telling you, and encourage them to avoid WWMT as well. Its a shame that in a dispute between two corporations, the actual customer - the viewer - is caught in the middle and used. It feels like nothing short of blackmail in a fashion, to make threats to deprive viewers of something many get for free, and as stated before, the threat maker - Sinclair - is the one with the sole power to make the deprivation a reality. After all, DirecTV cannot CHOOSE to drop your signal, only Sinclair can CHOOSE to have it removed. I am not suggesting that Sinclair should operate as a non-profit, or that it should lose money, but if its going to whine about the amount of money it makes allowing retransmission of its signal when many get it for free, it appears disingenuous at best. After all, shouldn't the idea be to get as many viewer eyes as possible on WWMT's advertisers? This dispute is doing the opposite. It is unfortunate that disputes like these are so commonplace nowadays, but it is downright despicable to play "tug of war" with the viewers caught in the middle. For shame.