Key Points
- DIRECTV and Griffin Media are in a carriage dispute that has pulled CBS affiliates in Oklahoma off DIRECTV’s platforms
- The conflict centers on retransmission fees, with Griffin seeking higher compensation for its channels.
- The missing CBS stations remain available to stream on other platforms like Paramount Plus with Showtime, Fubo and Hulu with Live TV and can usually be received for free with a conventional, over-the-air antenna.
A fresh dispute between satellite and streaming provider DIRECTV and a small television broadcaster has left large parts of Oklahoma without access to CBS programming through those platforms.
The dispute started Wednesday evening after a distribution agreement between DIRECTV and Griffin Media expired without a new contract in place, The Desk has learned.
The dispute is impacting two CBS affiliates — KWTV (Channel 9) in Oklahoma City and KOTV (Channel 6) in Tulsa — as well as independent station KSBI (Channel 52) in Oklahoma City and CW Network affiliate KQCW (Channel 19) in Tulsa.
A spokesperson for Griffin Media said the broadcaster offered to keep its channels on DIRECTV’s platforms while negotiations over a new agreement took place, but DIRECTV opted to remove the channels instead.
“Unfortunately, this means that DIRECTV customers no longer have access to severe weather coverage from David Payne, Lacey Swope and their team when it matters the most – during Oklahoma’s severe weather season,” the spokesperson said. “You should know that Griffin Media remains committed to reach an agreement at any time so viewers can regain access to the local news, weather, emergency alerts and community programming that national channels can’t provide and you rely upon.”
As is typical with programming-related disputes, the core issue at play here is the fee that DIRECTV pays Griffin Media for the rights to redistribute its channels to satellite and streaming subscribers. Those fees are typically passed on to customers in their bills, and have steadily increased over the past decade as local station owners absorb the cost of providing national sports programming from the Big Four broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.
Griffin Media said it asked DIRECTV to pay “a fair market rate” to continue carrying its local TV stations.
“Like every TV provider, DIRECTV offers bundled packages that include a wide range of channels—news, sports, entertainment, and local stations,” a spokesperson said. “Griffin is simply asking to be fairly compensated for the local stations that are already part of those packages, and we are not asking viewers to pay for something new — our stations are already included in your package.”
A spokesperson for DIRECTV said Griffin Media had “temporarily blocked our customers’ access to its local broadcast stations to try to force them to pay lots more over the next few years for much of the same programming as before.”
“Griffin has tried this before, and a little patience today can help us keep costs down in the future,” the DIRECTV spokesperson told The Desk over text message. “We want our Oklahoma City and Tulsa customers to receive the best value for their money, and appreciate their understanding as we work with Griffin to reconnect them as soon as possible.”
Griffin Media said DIRECTV was trying to frame the situation as forcing customers to pay for channels they don’t want to watch, but “that’s how all TV packages work: Bundling ensures you have access to a wide range of programming, including the local stations that matter most when it counts like during emergencies and severe weather.” (A person familiar with the matter said DIRECTV and Griffin have discussed a temporary arrangement that provides access to local news from KWTV and KOTV in the event of a severe weather emergency.)
The Griffin Media spokesperson said an a-la-carte model where viewers were allowed to pay for just its local TV stations wouldn’t work because “most networks — including sports and entertainment channels — wouldn’t be available in a package at all.”
“Bundles keep costs lower and ensure access to a wide range of programming, including local stations,” Griffin Media said.
Industry experts who have spoken with The Desk over the years don’t necessarily dispute that line of thinking: The unit economics of the pay TV industry only work when customers subsidize channels they don’t watch to the benefit of subscribers who do.
In theory, this keeps costs low for everyone, but over the past decade, the principle has been weaponized by broadcasters who want to charge more money for their channels. Over that time period, DIRECTV and competing satellite broadcaster Dish Network have dropped local channels and national networks for weeks or months at a time in order to avoid charging their customers more. Typically, the blackouts are resolved, with financial terms not disclosed and customers eventually paying more for channels.
In recent years, DIRECTV has offered its streaming customers the option of purchasing higher-priced traditional channel bundles that include a wide variety of entertainment, news and sports programming, or switching to lower-cost, genre-based packages that offer channels based on themes like entertainment, news and sports. Even then, DIRECTV’s genre packages may contain channels that customers don’t necessarily want — for example, a bundle that offers sports networks at $70 per month also includes network-affiliated local TV stations that most subscribers can receive for free with an antenna, with no way to opt out of receiving or paying for those channels.
The dispute involving Griffin Media comes at a time when DIRECTV is pursuing a federal antitrust lawsuit in an attempt to unwind Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2 billion acquisition of TEGNA. In that case, DIRECTV argues that allowing Nexstar — already the largest TV station owner in the country — to acquire even more stations violates federal ownership rules and gives one broadcaster too much leverage to charge cable and satellite TV subscribers more for channels.
Last month, a federal judge overseeing DIRECTV’s lawsuit against Nexstar issued a preliminary injunction that effectively requires Nexstar to distance itself from TEGNA and its stations while the case plays out. Nexstar is appealing the order.
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Editor’s note: This story was updated Wednesday evening to include comments from a DIRECTV spokesperson.
