DirecTV customers may miss playoff
Some Seattle Seahawks fans won't be able to watch the playoff game Sunday.
MOSES LAKE - Some Seattle Seahawks fans may miss the next playoff game this Sunday.
DirecTV subscribers continue missing FOX affiliated channels while the satellite provider renegotiates an expired contract agreement.
The Seahawks are scheduled to play the Chicago Bears on Sunday at 10 a.m. in the next playoff round, and FOX is broadcasting the game. Just not to DirectTV subscribers in some areas of Eastern Washington.
TV stations KAYU, Fox 41 of Spokane, and KFFX, Fox 11 of Yakima, went black on DirecTV customers' TV screens Jan. 1, after its parent TV company Northwest Broadcasting Inc., failed to reach a contract agreement with the satellite provider, replacing the previous 10-year contract due Dec. 31.
In addition to the two Washington state stations, Northwest Broadcasting owns TV stations in Binghamton, N.Y., and Medford, Ore.
Roughly 160,000 homes are affected by the loss of the four TV stations, according to TVNewsCheck.com, a Web site dedicated to business news concerning the broadcasting industry.
"That ten-year-old contract represented the market conditions when it was negotiated, but no longer represents the reality in the marketplace and is not the basis for a new agreement. Rather the new agreement should reflect today's marketplace and what DIRECTV and other MVPDs are paying programmers for their content," stated Northwest Broadcasting President and CEO Brian Brady.
According to TVNewsCheck.com, DirecTV CEO Mike White stated Northwest Broadcasting is asking for a 600 percent increase from the last contract.
In response, Northwest Broadcasting claimed DirecTV was reselling the company's programming at a 1,000 percent mark-up rate.
According to Northwest Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Jon Rand, the company receives around 15 cents per DirecTV subscriber.
He said the TV company has been trying to renegotiate with DirecTV for the past 17 months.
"When we started, we had 40 to 50 issues we wanted addressed. Now, we only have three more issues we want to resolve. One is monetary and the other two are non-monetary," said Rand.
He declined to comment on the specific issues.
"We need a big company like DirecTV to treat us just as fairly as the bigger stations," he said.
Northwest Broadcasting and DirecTV CEOs will talk on Friday to discuss further options, said Rand.
"We hope to have a breakthrough and have this issue resolved in the next few days," he said.
DirecTV reportedly asked Northwest Broadcasting to continue allowing DirecTV customers access to the four channels during renegotiations.
DirecTV could not be reached for comment.