Legislators From Eight States Have Now Called on AT&T to Negotiate in Good Faith and Restore Nexstar’s Stations and Programming - Seite 2

Since AT&T removed scores of local Nexstar Broadcasting television stations, viewers across the United States have expressed their outrage at AT&T/DIRECTV complaining about the loss of critical and lifesaving information as well as the loss of holiday programming and the US Women’s National Soccer Team’s historic World Cup finals game win which brought Team USA their fourth title. Since AT&T’s removal of the Nexstar stations, viewers have been denied access to over 2,400 hours of local news. Tonight, viewers in 20 local markets will be unable to watch the 2019 Major League Baseball All-Star Game through their AT&T/DIRECTV subscriptions.

Nexstar continues to negotiate in good faith to establish a mutually agreeable contract with AT&T/DIRECTV and has offered AT&T/DIRECTV the same rates it offered to other large distribution partners with whom it completed successful negotiations with in 2019 to date. Nexstar stands by its offer to permit AT&T to relaunch its stations on DIRECTV and AT&T Uverse through August 8 while the parties continue negotiations.

A little more than a year after putting DIRECTV together with Time Warner, AT&T appears intent on using its new market power to prioritize its own content at the expense of consumers, and insisting on unreasonable and extreme terms that are inconsistent with the market. As measured by stock market capitalizations, AT&T is approximately 50 times larger than Nexstar. As Senator Blumenthal noted in his letter dated July 5, “This cutoff seems to have the sole purpose of enhancing DirecTV bargaining leverage – with severe harm to Connecticut consumers.”

The only conclusion that can be drawn from DIRECTV/AT&T’s refusal to accept Nexstar’s offer of an extension is that rather than working on behalf of their subscribers, AT&T-DIRECTV continues to raise prices while reducing channels and content offerings. AT&T/DIRECTV is routinely involved in disputes with content providers and following its 2015 acquisition by AT&T, DIRECTV has dropped or threatened to black out network and local community programming from Viacom, SJL Broadcasting/Lilly Broadcasting, Deerfield Media, GoCom Media of Illinois, Howard Stirk Holdings, Mercury Broadcast Group, MPS Media, Nashville License Holdings, Roberts Media, Second Generation of Iowa and Waitt Broadcasting, among others.