CBS said it has reached a comprehensive content carriage agreement with Altice USA. Terms of the multi-year deal were not disclosed.
According to CBS, the deal includes its owned and operated TV stations, its Showtime premium channel, CBS Sports Network, Pop TV and Smithsonian Channel. The agreement also enables Altice to continue offering the Showtime digital streaming service to its broadband customers.
“We are pleased to strike a fair marketplace deal with Altice for CBS, Showtime, CBS Sports Network, Pop TV and Smithsonian Channel well in advance of our expiration and without any disruption to consumers. We appreciate the value Altice places on delivering America’s #1 network to its customers,” said CBS television networks distribution president Ray Hopkins in a press release. “Altice is a great partner, and we look forward to continuing to bring our highly-rated programming and exclusive major sporting events to all of Altice’s customers.”
The deal comes as CBS continues to be at loggerheads with another distributor -- AT&T -- over 14 stations that went dark on July 20 after they failed to reach a retransmission consent agreement.
“Altice USA is committed to delivering a wide array of high-quality content for our customers at competitive, fair rates, and this new agreement with CBS allows us to meet that objective,” said Altice USA head of programming Yossi Benchetrit in a press release.. “We are pleased to extend our longstanding partnership with CBS, enabling the CBS network portfolio to remain available to our customers as part of Altice’s Optimum and Suddenlink TV lineups.”
