DirecTV's Dispute with Nexstar Doesn't Affect San Angelo

SAN ANGELO, TX — AT&T’s DirecTV and UVerse cable systems no longer carry the local broadcast signal for Nexstar Media Group. AT&T and Nexstar are in a contract dispute over how much money AT&T will pay Nexstar for the rights to broadcast their local TV stations' signals to DirecTV’s satellite and UVerse’s cable customers.

In San Angelo, Nexstar owns KLST and KSAN, but KLST/KSAN general manager Tom Stovall said this morning the dispute has no impact on the San Angelo Designated Market Area. DirecTV does not carry the San Angelo TV stations, he said. Special equipment is required to be installed by DirecTV, “But they have never installed it,” Stovall said.

TV cable service inside the San Angelo city limits is not Uverse, but instead provided by Suddenlink, a separate corporation with no ties to AT&T and DirecTV.

The last prolonged feud over San Angelo’s local TV stations and a cable provider was in 2005 when then-Cox Cable and KLST/KSAN’s parent company could not reach an agreement over rebroadcasting rights. Suddenlink now runs the former Cox network and the KLST/KSAN signals remain available there.

Elsewhere, more than 120 Nexstar stations in 97 other markets went dark on AT&T’s DirecTV and UVerse systems at 11:59 p.m. July 3. The markets impacted include Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; and Indianapolis, Indiana.

“Nexstar pulls or threatens to pull their stations from the customers of TV providers to increase fees for stations far beyond their value. They’ve done it to Cox Cable, DISH, and Charter Spectrum, and now they’re doing it to us.

The four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) have together lost about half their primetime audience over the past few years. Despite this, Nexstar is demanding the largest increase that AT&T has ever seen from any content provider. By asking us to pay even for viewers who choose to receive Nexstar stations for free over the air or through other means, Nexstar is also reducing consumer choice. For a company seeking to become the largest broadcaster in America, this is behavior that should not be rewarded,” AT&T stated in on a website, TVPromise. https://tvpromise.att.com/

Nexstar said they attempted to extend the date of when their stations would go dark until Aug. 2 to allow more time for negotiations, but AT&T rejected the proposal.

“With its long-term record of delivering exemplary service to the local markets where it operates, Nexstar deeply regrets DirecTV/AT&T’s rejection of the extension as it deprives viewers in the affected markets of broadcasts of leading network content from ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, and MyNetworkTV as well as local news and other programming produced specifically for these local communities,” Nexstar said in a statement.