Dish Settles Third Carriage Dispute In Last Week

January 28, 2024

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow on X.
Former Sony employee and editor of 4 TV magazines.

Dish has settled its 15-month carriage dispute with Standard Media Group, returning four local stations its lineup: WLNE-TV (ABC in Providence, Rhode Island), KLKN-TV (ABC in Lincoln, Nebraska), KBSI-TV (Fox in Paducah, Kentucky) and WDKA-TV (My Network TV in Paducah, Kentucky).

The stations were removed from Dish on November 11, 2022 after the two companies could not reach a new carriage agreement. Dish and Standard Media Group were fighting over how much the former should pay the latter to carry its signals.

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“We are pleased to announce that DISH (and Standard Media Group) have reached a new, multi-year carriage agreement,” Dish said in an e-mail to subscribers last week.

This is the third carriage fight that Dish has settled in the last week. The satcaster on Tuesday of last week signed a new carriage agreement with Mission Broadcasting, ending a 12-month blackout of 27 Mission-owned local stations in 25 markets. The Mission-owned station/markets include New York. Providence, Rhode Island, Little Rock, Albuquerque, Abilene, Texas, Albany, New York and Erie, Pennsylvania, among others. You can see a complete list here.

And on January 21, Dish settled a fee fight with Lilly Broadcasting ending a 40-day blackout of three local stations in the Pennsylvania/New York markets: WICU-TV (NBC), WSEE-TV (CBS) and WENY-TV (The CW), and one in Michigan: WZMQ-TV (CBS).

The nation’s second largest satellite TV service is still involved in local channel disputes with White Knight and Cox Media.

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The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.