Nexstar Media Group is largest local station blackout in TV history - resolved

Glad I can get all my locals via antenna and tell all the station owners to STFU! This particular group doesn’t affect my market area but if they manage to get big increases you can bet all the others will line up at the trough!

 

Totally agree. These constant disputes are not good for either side. Portland has KOIN/KRCW both Nexstar, so people will lose CBS & CW.

 

Yeah, I stood up an antenna array on my roof years ago when I was still with DirecTV. Between rain/snow fade and what seemed to be never ending disputes with local station owners like Nexstar along with wanting to circumvent sports blackouts by having access to 3 DMA's major network stations using it, the antenna is becoming less of a backup solution and more our go to for major network access.

As for telling the station owners to STFU, well the jury is still out on that one. As ATSC 3.0 rolls out and becomes more the standard, I can see these same station owners putting things like 4k OTA content behind a paywall while leaving standard HD in the clear so they can satisfy any FCC public access requirements. That would work fine for me since I am good with HD/stereo but others aren't. Suffice it to say, the station owners will find a way to try and monetize everything and push for as much as they possibly can.

 

I still got a outdoor antenna it’s about 30 years old lol nothing like old technology I always chuckle when people ask me if it’s a HD antenna..

 

These stations should be split apart...Never should they be allowed to hold such a market share!
For the price their asking, it should be commercial free!

 

I am set up also with an OTA antenna for my local CBS station, but it won't do any good with WGN.

 

Everyone should stand against this. There is absolutely no reason any distributer should have to pay to re-broadcast these channels.

 

I haven’t watched WGN since they quit broadcasting the Cubs

 

Well, if it takes Congress to change the rules then don't hold your breath. Get that outdoor antenna set up. Funny around here with 5 translators and 26 OTA stations, there still only a few people with outdoor antennas. I tell people all of time get that outdoor antenna I will not have to pay for locals. Since the stacking with 3.0 we went from 16 to 26 OTA offerings giving us ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, FOX, MYTV, & CW, plus METV, Comet, Stadium, Get TV, Qwest, COZI, Grit, Bounce, Antenna TV, and others. There is no reason why someone could not go with OTA TV, unless in an apt with rules, but there are also some ways around it. Jumping from carrier to carrier wont solve it permanently. Spectrum Cable increases their rates to pay the higher rates, so few disputes, but will that last forever?

 

FYI for any lurking readers who maybe thinking of cancelling Dish Network for DirecTV, AT&T TV or AT&T TV Now double check your market's other locals. It appears Tenga & Nexstar has a lot of markets where they both own stations. AT&T maybe forced to black out Tenga stations if they don't reach a new deal/extension by November 30, 2020. If both AT&T and Dish have to pull Tenga & Nexstar locals this means both DirecTV will be missing the Tenga station(s) and Dish will be potentially missing the Nexstar station(s) in the same market at the same time.

Switching providers during these disputes is not the answer.

 

The only way to "win" is to use an OTA antenna for anything local (or at least have it available when needed).

 

Like Portland, Tegna owns KGW/NBC and Nexstar owns/CBS KOIN/CW KRCW. Sinclair owns KATU/ABC and Meredith owns KPTV/FOX and KPDX/MYTV. There have been disputes will all of them at different times. I am sure there will be many more. Also if a dispute goes on too long, often DISH may l give up and the service may never return.

 

Add to that, if you use an OTA antenna, you get the diginets. Dish does carry a few, but many are not carried. For our rural area, 26 offerings are fantastic. I will say one thing, the station owners gave us the free TV out here and it costs hundred's of thousands to install and keep the translators on. They do a great job on keeping them on the air with our stormy weather in the Winter.

 

Demands like this are just cutting their own throat, at least in the long run. Advertisers want eyeballs and loosing the various satelite and streaming services cuts eyeballs. At some point advertisers will demand lower ad rates or go elsewhere. Unfortunately, in the short run it's viewers like DISH customers who suffer. Even so, I have to side with Charlie on this one.

 

As has been pointed out, Dish isn't the only one going through this. We may be getting to the point where locals aren't available on any service, unless something drastically changes. Where I'm at, after Tuesday, I could be down to just my ABC & NBC affiliate (no CBS, CW or Fox).

 

I've been considering purchasing a SiliconDust HDHomeRun HDHR5-4US Connect Quatro 4 Channel Tuner and hooking it up to my home network. Either that, or getting a Locast account and utilizing the Locast 2 Plex plugin. The challenge with both solution is that, outside of the Dallas Cowboys games (blame my next door neighbor) and severe weather coverage, I'm not watching OTA programming at all. My office television is the only television of the three in my home without a OTA antenna connection.