Dish & Sinclair Sign Deal For Local Stations
Dish and Sinclair this morning announced they’ve reached a multi-year agreement to keep Sinclair’s 144 local stations, and the Tennis Channel, in Dish’s lineup.
However, the announcement made no mention of Sinclair’s 19 Bally Sports regional sports networks which have been off Dish since July 2019 due to a separate dispute.
William Bell, Sinclair’s chief of distribution & network relations said in a press release: “Our agreement with DISH reflects the continued importance that distributors place on local and national broadcast content. We look forward to continuing to provide DISH viewers with the high-quality and highly-desired entertainment, and timely local news that they depend on every day.”
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“We are pleased to have reached a multi-year agreement with Sinclair after months of negotiations,” added Brian Neylon, Dish’s group president. “Sinclair has been a good long-term partner to work with. Both sides have been committed to keeping our customers top of mind and not putting them in the middle of our negotiations. After several contract extensions, we have arrived at a fair agreement that benefits all parties, especially our customers.”
The Tennis Channel will also stay on Sling TV, Dish’s live streaming service. Sling has never carried the Sinclair locals.
The TV Answer Man will update this article when more details are available.
Update: As of 10 a.m. ET, neither Dish or Sinclair have commented beyond what was in the terse press release. Prior to today’s announcement, Sinclair said Dish would likely have to carry the regional sports networks to keep the local stations as well. It’s possible that Sinclair dropped that requirement, but it’s also possible that the companies are continuing to discuss the RSNs while publicly acknowledging they are in accord on the locals.
Again, we will update this article if we get more information.
Update #2: Dish vs. Sinclair: Is the Bally Sports Deal Dead?
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When will this happen so we can see our local channels
Already happened.
I have dish local cbs not on .. says it’s Tegna problem
Sinclair is different from the Tegna stations.
When are we going to get our Utah jazz games back, When you no longer carry a channel you should drop what we have to pay Dish,
I’m glad to see some movement on these DISH disputes. Is there any update on a possible new agreement with NBC Sports Bay Area? It’s been such a long stretch now.
Nice for these folks that an agreement could be reached. What is the problem with negotiations between Dish and Tegna? Six weeks now without our NBC affiliate, most watched in my household. Reaching out to these companies is all automated, blaming each other. Not a good business practice to solve this dispute. Very upsetting.
When can we get channel 43 back. Missing all my shows