Dish Network programming chief Warren Schlichting pleaded with Hearst Television to come back to the table to negotiate an end to its week-long retransmission consent battle.
Hearst pulled the signal of 33 broadcast stations in 26 markets to Dish customers on March 3 after the parties could not reach an agreement. The dispute appears to be over money—Dish thinks its paying too much and Hearst not enough. But earlier in the week it appeared as if Hearst was refusing to continue talks to resolve the matter, which Schlichting appeared to confirm on Thursday.
In a video message to Dish customers, Schlichting said that despite its efforts to bring an end to the impasse, Hearst refused to negotiate with Dish.
In the message, Schlichting called the impasse “truly unfortunate,” but explained the company's hands are tied.
For the full story go to Multichannel.com.
(Photo via Dave L.'s Flickr. Image taken on Feb. 6, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 3x4 aspect ratio.)
