• by Wayne Friedman , July 3, 2023

Failed carriage negotiations between Nexstar Media Group, the largest owner of U.S. TV stations, and DirecTV have resulted in 200 TV stations being dropped from the  pay TV company’s satellite TV and virtual/digital TV services.

Nexstar says this affects more than 10 million subscribers, including Nexstar-affiliated network stations -- ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW stations in select markets -- as well as NewsNation.

A company release says: “Nexstar has been negotiating tirelessly and in good faith in an attempt to reach a mutually agreeable multi-year contract with DirecTV since May, offering the same fair market rates it offered to other distribution.” 

Nexstar says it declined DirecTV’s offer to extend the current distribution agreement to October 31, 2023. 

DirecTV claims it is denying Nexstar’s demands to pay more than double the previous fees for the same content under the previously negotiated contract.

“Nexstar has a long track record of forcing programming outages in an effort to unnecessarily raise prices for everyone at the expense of the communities they are licensed and entrusted to serve," said Rob Thun, chief content officer of DirecTV, in a press release.

Thun adds that the company will  continue to work with Nexstar to reach an agreement “while protecting them from unwarranted price increases.”

DirecTV cites FCC data which says pay TV viewers spend an estimated $200 annually for local station programming “designed to be free over-the-air.”

Nexstar has 159 owned TV stations, and just over 40 partner stations, in 116 U.S. markets reaching 212 million people.  DirecTV operates DirecTV, DirecTV Stream and U-Verse pay TV services.