Responding to Dish Network Corp.'s (DISH) statement regarding retransmission consent negotiations, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. (SBGI) said that Dish chose to put out an announcement attempting to blame Sinclair for the failure of the parties to reach agreement on a renewal.
Sinclair Broadcast Group announced yesterday that its retransmission consent agreement with Dish Network, pursuant to which Dish carries 70 stations Sinclair owns or provides services to, is scheduled to terminate at midnight tomorrow, Wednesday, August 15, 2012.
Sinclair Broadcast said it released the announcement simply to provide the public with advance notice of a potential disruption in video service.
On Monday, Dish Network had said that Sinclair Broadcast Group has threatened to block Dish customers' access to television stations in 45 cities across the country unless Dish accepts a massive price increase. The retransmission consent agreement between Dish and Sinclair expires on August 15. If the companies fail to reach an agreement on price, Dish will no longer be allowed to carry Sinclair's signals.
Sinclair noted that the prices it is requesting for its extremely popular stations are substantially lower than the amounts Dish is paying for other far less popular channels it carries as a result of Dish's flawed economic model that on a relative basis compensates channels with little to no audience share more than the broadcast channels.
In addition, Sinclair noted that its negotiations with Dish, a company which is currently being sued by the ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC networks as a result of Dish providing its customers with technology that allows its subscribers to delete commercials, involve matters other than pricing.
Sinclair reminded its viewers who are Dish subscribers that the Sinclair stations that may be dropped by Dish remain available from a variety of other sources. These sources include DirecTV, at least one cable company in each market, Verizon's FiOS or AT&T's U-Verse in many markets, and completely for free over-the-air.
Sinclair suggestd its viewers would be better served by simply switching its video service to a provider of Dish that values Sinclair stations enough to carry them.
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