In a letter to AT&T Chairman/CEO Randall Stephenson, NAB leader Gordon Smith on Thursday took issue with what his organization has assailed as a “misleading campaign” from the owner of DirecTV, U-Verse and AT&T TV NOW — one that warns “unaffected viewers” they are at risk of losing TV channels if Congress does not reauthorize STELAR.
The expiration of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) has become the subject of increased debate in Washington and across the U.S., and AT&T wants it continued. The NAB wants it to end, thus forcing AT&T to bring the closest local channels to a host of tiny DMAs with no “local” network affiliates. Modern technology, the broadcast media industry lobbying organization notes, has made it feasible for DirecTV to bring these signals to areas that in the past could not obtain these closest-to-them stations.
As of now, DirecTV brings these small DMAs national feeds, originating from New York for East Coast markets and from Los Angeles for West Coast markets.
The markets involved are as follows:
- Alpena, Michigan
- Bowling Green, Kentucky
- Casper-Riverton, Wyoming
- Cheyenne, Wyoming/Scottsbluff, Nebraska
- Grand Junction, Colorado
- Helena, Montana
- North Platte, Nebraska
- Ottumwa, Iowa/Kirksville, Missouri
- Presque Isle, Maine
- San Angelo, Texas
- Victoria, Texas
- Glendive, Montana
According to the NAB, DISH carries all the local TV stations in all 210 TV markets in America after a 2006 court case found the company was illegally importing distant network programming into households that should have been receiving their local broadcast stations. DirecTV, prior to AT&T ownership, promised in 2003 to carry all local TV stations in every DMA. That hasn’t happened.
Now, Smith, a former Republican Senator from Oregon, is taking Stephenson and AT&T to task for its viewer warnings, which he describes as “‘auto-tuned’ scare tactic messages appearing on TV screens of DirecTV customers. To him, the messages “are disingenuous at best, and deceptive at worst.”
He then called on Stephenson to fulfill the company’s “decade-old promise to carry local TV station signals in all 210 U.S. TV markets. That way, DirecTV viewers from Maine to Montana, and from Kentucky to Texas, will be able to watch local TV station affiliates rather than piped-in New York and Los Angeles programming from thousands of miles away.”
Smith concluded that DirecTV “is doing a serious disservice to both its customers and to Congress by running these misleading messages,” urging Stephenson to reconsider airing alerts “that only confuse your viewers, and to work with local broadcasters to ensure that all DirecTV customers receive their network programming from local TV affiliates.”
