FX and National Geographic channel—cable network groups acquired by the Walt Disney Co. when it acquired 21st Century Fox—are warning Dish subscribers that the channels could go dark in a dispute over carriage fees.
The deadline is 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time on July 21.
Earlier this week, a dispute with Meredith led to stations in 12 markets being blacked out to Dish subscribers.
“Our contract with Dish for the FX and National Geographic networks is due to expire soon, so we have a responsibility to make our viewers aware of the potential loss of our programming. However, we remain fully committed to reaching a deal and are hopeful we can do so,” Disney said in a statement.
In its own statement, Dish said: “Dish’s goal is to keep these channels available to our customers. We are unsure why Disney, the new owner of these channels, decided to involve customers in the contract negotiation process at a point when there is still time for the two parties to reach a mutually beneficial deal.”
The networks involved in the dispute include FX, FXX, FXM, National Geographic, and National Geographic Wild.
The new dispute between Disney and Dish comes as Dish’s satellite rival DirecTV is embroiled in a number of situations that have resulted in stations and networks being blacked out.
This morning CBS owned stations in more than a dozen markets became unavailable to pay-TV services owned by debt-laden AT&T.
In addition to the CBS stations being off DirecTV and AT&T Uverse, the CBS network is unavailable to streaming DirecTV Now subscribers.
Related: ATVA: 2019 Retrans Blackouts Tie Previous Record
DirecTV and Uverse subscribers are also not getting stations owned by Nexstar Media because of a retransmission consent dispute.
