Another peaceful retransmission consent deal has been struck which will ensure that the owned-and-operated television stations of CBS Corporation, along with key cable programming assets, will be available on satellite MVPD DirecTV for years to come.
The exact number of years was not revealed, nor, as per usual, were the terms.
But the deal gives DirecTV the rights to carry the CBS O&O fleet of broadcast television stations along with Showtime, CBS Sports Network, and Smithsonian Channel.
“We are very pleased with these renewals,” said Martin Franks, Executive Vice President for Planning, Policy and Government Relations, CBS Corporation. “DIRECTV clearly recognizes the value our stations and our cable channels bring to the audiences we share, and we have once again demonstrated how two great companies can come together to forge mutually beneficial free market agreements.”
“This is great news for our customers, who will continue to enjoy CBS and Showtime quality content for many years to come,” said Derek Chang, Executive Vice President, Content Strategy and Development, DIRECTV. “CBS and DIRECTV both recognize the interests of our customers are best served when we can privately work together as true programming partners and responsibly work out an agreement that is fair for everyone.”
One thing the deal does for DirecTV is secure CBS Network content in some of America’s largest DMAs. From the CBS website, here is the list of stations owned by the company:
CBS Television Stations consists of 29 owned-and-operated stations, including 16 that are part of the CBS Television Network, eight affiliates of The CW Network, three independent stations and two MyNetworkTV affiliates. Among its stations are WCBS-TV and WLNY-TV (New York), KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV (Los Angeles), WBBM-TV (Chicago), KYW-TV and WPSG-TV (Philadelphia), KTVT-TV and KTXA-TV (Dallas-Ft. Worth), KPIX-TV and KBCW-TV (San Francisco), WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV (Boston), WUPA-TV (Atlanta), WWJ-TV and WKBD-TV (Detroit), KSTW-TV (Seattle), WTOG-TV (Tampa-St. Petersburg), WCCO-TV (Minneapolis), KCNC-TV (Denver), WFOR-TV and WBFS-TV (Miami), KOVR-TV and KMAX-TV (Sacramento), KDKA-TV and WPCW-TV (Pittsburgh), WJZ-TV (Baltimore), as well as WCCO-TV’s satellite stations KCCO-TV (Alexandria, Minn.) and KCCW-TV (Walker, Minn.).
RBR-TVBR observation: Is this a signal of more peaceful times to come? DirecTV also announced new terms with Ion Television, and Dish Network just came to terms with television group owner Gannett in a deal that required just a little bit of overtime but included no disruption of service.
As NAB has been documenting for months, DirecTV and Dish, along with Time Warner Cable, have been involved in the vast majority of disputes that resulted in service disruption. Perhaps this week signals a newfound acceptance of the realities of the retransmission environment, and an underscoring of the value of local broadcast and broadcast network content.
Or perhaps not. The end of the year is prime time for testy retransmission battles, so we’ll be watching to see if this peaceful trend continues or if there is a return to negotiation warfare.
