Q. I have DIRECTV and I lost my local Fox and CBS stations because they are fighting over money or something. Is there anything I can do to get my local channels back? — Carlos, Albuquerque.
Carlos, you’re right. DIRECTV and Nexstar, the owner of more than 120 local stations, including the two you mentioned in your town, have been embroiled in a fee dispute for nearly two weeks. This has caused hundreds of thousands of DIRECTV, DIRECTV Now and U-verse subscribers to lose their network affiliates.
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In addition, Dish just lost 17 Meredith Broadcasting-owned local stations due to a separate programming dispute, and CBS is threatening to pull its locally-owned stations in 17 markets from DIRECTV and U-verse by this Friday if the two sides don’t reach a new carriage agreement. (Note: DIRECTV and U-verse are both owned by AT&T, which is handling the carriage negotiations.)
Update: Directv, U-verse and Directv Now lost the CBS-owned stations early Saturday morning. The two sides must now negotiate a new agreement before they will return.
So is there anyway to keep watching your local stations in one of these fee fights?
Yes, but it depends on where you live.
The easiest way to keep watching is to install an indoor or outdoor TV antenna which can pick up your local channels for free. However, before you run off to buy an antenna, you need to know that depending upon the location of your home, your antenna may not be able to pick up the signals of all your local channels. You may live too far away from the channel’s tower to get a decent signal, or you could have a major obstacle in the signal’s path, such as a high-rise office building or mountain. (The mountain issue is a common one in Albuquerque, Carlos.)
Also, since the nation’s transition to Digital TV a decade ago, many antenna owners complain that it’s been more difficult to capture local signals. Unlike the old analog signal, you need a perfect connection to capture the digital signal or it will not display on your set. There is no middle ground. You either get a digital signal or you don’t.
How can you tell if an antenna at your home will receive all your local channels?
Antennaweb.org, a web site co-sponsored by the Consumer Technology Association and the National Broadcasting Association, offers an easy-to-use guide to determining what kind of antenna you would need — and how many channels that antenna will pick up.
You type in your address, zip code and whether the antenna will be 30 feet or higher above ground level and then antennaweb.org will display a list of stations that you probably will be able to receive. I say ‘probably’ because until you actually test it at home, you can’t be 100 percent sure.
The web site also tells you what kind of antenna you’ll need to receive a specific station.
So what if you can’t use an antenna, you ask?
Well, there’s Locast.
Locast is a new, free service that delivers local channels over the Internet in 13 markets, which represents roughly 31 percent of U.S. population. (The markets are: New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Sioux Falls, Denver, Los Angeles, Rapid City, and San Francisco.)
You download the Locast app on a computer, tablet or Smart TV device such as Roku, provide a name and e-mail address, and suddenly you are watching all your local channels. I can’t vouch for the reliability of the signals. I have used Locast a few times and found it to be a bit inconsistent. But it’s free so you can’t beat that.
AT&T, the owner of DIRECTV and U-verse, has donated $500,000 to Locast, and installed the app on its Internet-based DIRECTV set-tops. So you will likely hear a lot more about Locast in the coming days.
Carlos, hope that helps. Happy viewing!
Check out these best-selling antennas at Amazon.com.
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvpredictions.com. Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
It’s crap. It’s included I my package I pay for it so what the problem????
I’m not gona go buy an attena to get what I’m paying for. It it doesn’t stop soon I’m leaving Direct. Phone , internet and TV!!!!
U the answer man get my local channel back on direct tv
Call direct tv they sent me a thing to hook up to my tv for local stations free.
Call or chat in with DIRECTV and ask for a KFC local channel connector and they will send one out at no charge. Self install off air antenna although you still might not recieve the specific local you are looking for. It will add additional channels to your guide that you did not have before.
Can I get local channels off of wifi
I was so frustrated I canceled DirecTV after six years of service and went with Spectrum now I have all the channels I want
Unsubscribe me please!
Thank you. I live in the mountains of Westrtn North Carolina. Sixteen years ago an antenna worked. Now, as you said, in this digital age I doubt that is a viable answer for me. I have had DirecTV for at least twelve years. I have been wavering between DirecTV and Dish.
AT&T buy out of DirecTV is not user friendly in my view.
Is WIFI BLAST a good alternative to boost broadband speed?
Ruth, You Don’t miss much. NOT User Friendly, is putting it “mildly”
After AT&T bought DirecTV the Customer service went OVERSEAS and went to HELL !
If AT&T wanted to really maximize efficiency and costs, they would only make an agreement with the owned-and-operated CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX stations. Let the remainder of the country with stations owned by these big companies like Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, Tegna Broadcast Group, Tribune Media Group, Cox Media Group, and others just get dropped. AT&T could keep rates the same, and use the savings to offset increases on other channels. May even give them flexibility to offer better packages to their legacy Satellite subscribers. I just recently stayed at a friends home who had DirecTV legacy satellite and wow, there are a LOT of channels stuffed in the program guide with nothing but infomercials.
Ruth and Tom,
As a longtime DirecTV subscriber, I wholeheartedly agree.
I don’t appreciate their telemarketing crap, either; trying to upsell programming when the rates are already ridiculous.
If At&T did exactly that then your rates could jump anywhere from 50 to 100% and then you would be screaming and be saying I’m switching to Dish or whoever! They are not perfect by any means but a lot better than most.