The latest in the recent spate of carriage disputes, Dispatch Broadcasting has pulled its Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio TV stations off DirecTV and AT&T U-verse.
In a notice on the stations’ websites, Dispatch said its decision to take WTHR, the Indianapolis NBC affiliate, and WBNS, Columbus’ CBS affiliate, off the platforms came after it offered negotiators an extension to no avail.
“WTHR has completed numerous retransmission agreements in the past 12 months at fair market rates without any service interruption. Unfortunately, after offering an extension last Friday to hopefully reach a fair market deal, the deadline to reach a fair agreement with DirecTV and AT&T U-verse has passed, resulting in the interruption of service for WTHR viewers who watch our stations on those systems,” the statement on WTHR’s website said. “We will continue to work towards a fair agreement with DirecTV and AT&T U-verse and hope to resolve this situation as soon as possible.”
Dispatch also encouraged subscribers to find alternative means to watching the stations, including via free, over-the-air broadcast.
(Photo via Bill Bradford's Flickr. Image taken on March 4, 2016 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 16x9 aspect ratio.)
