No Fox on Directv and U-Verse

Where are you located? What is your local Fox station? I thought DIRECTV and Fox just signed an agreement for DIRECTV Now that would also include Fox on DIRECTV?

 

That renewal was only for Fox O&O markets. Portland's Fox affiliate isn't owned by Fox

Considering that different companies own different local stations in each market, that detail really does matter

The funny thing, AT&T doesn't have any landline service where your Fox affiliate reaches. You would think your station would localize their dispute message and only mention DirecTV...

 

It is Sinclair, which is surprising since they own so many affiliates. I wonder why this one is an orphan. On the other hand, I have a feeling the Sinclair battle will be emerging again. Four years, which is a guess, would mean that the current one would expire this upcoming February.

 

The last deal passed a few hours before expiration this could be the same. This one could maybe be different as it's not owned by Sinclair, but operated by them.

 

Yes, your Fox channel isn't a Fox owned channel. Very big detail.
Your Fox channel is owned by someone else, and it is operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group.
So the Directv agreement to currently show you your Fox channel is with Sinclair. That appears to expire at the end of this month, so Directv won't be allowed to show it to you (and likely the other 100+ Fox, NBC, CBS, etc. affiliates owned/operated by Sinclair nationwide) after that date.

These agreements usually get resolved before the end of the contract end date. Some do go dark but are resolved quickly. But some do last weeks or months.

Your local channel will tell you this is Directv's fault, but both can take the blame. They will tell you to switch providers but your cable company or Dish Network obviously aren't immune to this issue.

 

Basically, yes. If you live in a market where the Fox station is owned by Fox (there are not many nationally, usually the biggest cities), the recent deal includes you. For the rest of us, it makes no difference because of local channel ownership. Local channels have too much control over content.

 

I googled 'Directv Sinclair' and restricted to the search to the past month and found similar stuff for Dec. 1 in places like Dayton, OH and Charleston, WV. What makes it interesting to me is that my local CBS and Fox stations are Sinclair, but the retransmission agreement was signed in spring 2014. There is nothing I can find suggesting my local stations will be affected by this.

Checking in Charleston I found two Sinclair stations, WVAH is owned by them and WCHS is owned by Cunningham and operated by Sinclair and is the only one of the two that has anything on Google suggesting it will be dropped by Directv on Dec. 1. For whatever reason they schedule their negotiations with Directv differently for owned versus operated stations.

 

Here's a link showing Sinclair stations, the footnotes show those they operate but don't own - but read the footnotes it more complicated than that. Footnote 1 indicates stations owned by Cunningham, but its stock is almost completely controlled by trusts in the name of family members of Sinclair's founders. Footnotes 6 & 8 are other owners but are in the process of being transferred to Cunningham. So everything listed as 1, 6 and 8 is not legally owned by Sinclair but effectively is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group

Checking other operated stations it doesn't look like many have a Dec. 1 expiration, not sure why certain ones are on a different schedule. You'd think it would give them more leverage with Directv to negotiate them all at once, but who knows.

 

Might be time to look into getting Over The Air television reception.

 

And in multiple markets, these companies own two networks so in one dispute someone might lose fox and cbs etc.

 

I'm getting the same crawl. However, mine is a WB station operated but not owned by Sinclair. The Sinclair owned station does not have the crawl. In my case I guess I'm lucky; It won't be missed.

 

I already have my AM21 hooked up. And I have set my one recording for the next week to the OTA station.

 

Defiantly looks like all the stations that will be impacted are ones that Sinclair operates via LMA or SSA through their shell companies and a few independent companies. Wouldn't surprise me if they are trying to get a short term contract for these stations so when contract for Sinclair O&Os come up for renewal then these do too. Similar to how Dish went through a dispute with Sinclair for 74 stations in 2012 then last year it was for every station they owned outright, through shell companies and through LMA/SSA which was a total of 129 stations.

Timeline of negotiations so far

February 28, 2013 was the last retrans agreement reached between DirecTV and Sinclair for 87 stations which was resolved mere hours before they were to be pulled. Most of these were owned outright by Sinclair.
December 1, 2016 is when the contract expires for 38 stations they negotiate for on behalf of the shell/independent companies via LMA/SSA.

From what I have read DTV likes long term contracts of 5-7 years if that is true then the agreement for the 87 stations may come up for renewal in 2018-2020. AT&T/DirecTV most likely want an agreement for these 38 stations to be 5-7 years so they can't pull them all at once. Sinclair may want a 2-4 year deal so they can pull over 120+ stations next time and demand a bigger fee like they did with Dish last year.

 

I got it today on my CW network (also Sinclair). They own my Fox and NBC affiliate as well so I expect to see a crawl there tonight when I watch "Lucifer"

 

I saw it on my Fox station tonight. My CBS is owned by Sinclair and Fox is operated by them...no crawl on the CBS station. Fortunately these disputes don't affect me.

 

I didnt see it on Fox last night. After looking further my CW isnt owned by Sinclair. It is owned by Deerfield Media but is operated by them. My NBC and Fox are owned by Sinclair.