DirecTV vs. Nexstar

[rtroxel]

My wife and I recently began subscribing to DirecTV cable service, only to see our favorite station, KRQE, in Albuquerque, pulled from their line-up.

After doing some research, we learned that KRQE is owned by Nexstar, a 3-billion dollar corporation that owns hundreds of local stations across the county. Nexstar's plan is to drop their local stations from DirecTV's lineup, and force cable companies like DirecTV, Dish, Comcast,etc, to pay more for airing them. This cost, of course, will be borne by the subscribers to those companies' services.

Most of Nexstar's local stations are network affiliates (CBS, NBC, etc.), so a lot subscribers will be missing their favorite programs.

You can learn more here:

Has anyone else faced this problem (coming to a town near you)?

Thanks for listening,

Roy in New Mexico

 

[MBAustin]

Oh, yes. NBC station in Austin is Nexstar. It's been off DirecTV for a month or so. Very annoying. There is also a feud with CBS that is affecting some cities.

 

[bloom2708]

Invest in an Over The Air (OTA) antenna. These disputes happen weekly.

Some are resolved quickly, others are never resolved. Meaning the channels never come back.

If you just signed up, you likely did a 2 year contract. 1 year at the "good price" and a second year at full price. Maybe even got a $200 gift card or better.

I have an OTA antenna on the roof. Putting in an attic is also an option.

Hopefully this dispute is resolved quickly.

 

[RunningBum]

I've got a good OTA antenna for situations like this. I can run it through my Dish receiver to use the DVR. If I couldn't I'd get a OTA DVR. It's worth seeing if you can pull in that station with a good antenna.

 

[Rianne]

We record most of our programs so antenna only helps for emergency weather broadcasts. This is incredibly irritating and ATT gave us $35 off for last month for the inconvenience. We record 5 (favorite) shows on CBS (or used to). We're about a month into the dispute in IL., maybe more, I can't remember.

 

[njhowie]

Check locast.org - it's been getting a lot of press lately as the networks are suing it claiming it is no different than Aereo, which they sued and put out of business a few years ago. However, it appears Locast may have a better case.

I don't see Albuquerque in their coverage, but you can just pull the networks from another city in your time zone to at least get prime time.

AT&T is locked in a fee dispute with CBS that has resulted in the network’s being blacked out since July 20 for more than 6.5 million of AT&T’s television subscribers. AT&T has encouraged its users to try Locast during the blackout.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/media/broadcast-networks-lawsuit-locast.html

 

[Rianne]

I just download locast from my Prime subscription, says it's free. Did not see CBS, but a bunch of other channels.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We switched from charter cable for 218/month to AT&T internet and direct TV for a total of 77/month. My husband gets a huge veteran discount. In a year it will go up to 136. When the 2 years is up we will go back to charter for their one year price. We liked charter much better.

 

[ncbill]

We record most of our programs so antenna only helps for emergency weather broadcasts. This is incredibly irritating and ATT gave us $35 off for last month for the inconvenience. We record 5 (favorite) shows on CBS (or used to). We're about a month into the dispute in IL., maybe more, I can't remember.

There are plenty of DVRs specifically for OTA channels...I use a couple of Tivo boxes, but Amazon has a cheaper option with the Recast.