Station may go dark on satellite TV

A contract dispute may mean a local television station will go dark this week for Dish Network viewers.

Cordillera Communications announced on Tuesday that viewers in several states might see a disruption in programming beginning this morning.

The outage would affect KPAX TV, a CBS affiliate owned by Cordillera, in addition to six other Montana TV stations as well as stations in six other states.

Viewers who watch Cordillera stations through Dish Network will be affected beginning today at 11 a.m. if a new contract is not reached between the two companies.

“Cordillera is committed to working twenty-four-seven to continue negotiations with Dish Network, but we have significant doubt that a new agreement can be reached before the deadline,” said Terrance Hurley, president of Cordillera Communications. “Unfortunately, Dish Network has refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement with Cordillera even as we offer terms similar to those of existing agreements with every other cable and satellite provider.

“Collecting retransmission fees is even more critical to local stations because in the past few years there has been a sea change in our business model requiring us to pay the major networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox millions of dollars annually to carry their programming,” Hurley said.

In the Flathead Valley, the only stations affected would be KPAX/KAJ and a CW-affiliated subchannel.

“We had one [blackout] last year, we just get cycled as contracts end,” KPAX General Manager Bob Hermes said. “This contract is expiring so we’re negotiating a new one with Dish, we just hope that it is successful. We want our signal on Dish. We have settled previously with DirecTV and Charter so we hope we can do a similar one with Dish.”

Cordillera expressed doubt that an agreement would be reached before the 11 a.m. deadline today.

Negotiations began in early November 2015, with Dish making the initial proposal. Ten different offers have been made between the two companies since, including a negotiation extension to Jan. 7 made in late December.  

“It’s certainly up in the air, everyone wants to solve it, I think, so I’m hoping it will get solved,” Hermes said. “All that negotiation is done at our corporate office and they’re talking with Dish as often as we can get them on the phone.”

Other Montana stations affected are:

•  KTVQ-CBS for Billings.
•  KXLF/KBZK-CBS for Butte-Bozeman (plus CW-affiliated subchannel).
•  KRTV-CBS for Great Falls.
•  KBGF-NBC for Great Falls.
•  KXLH-CBS for Helena.
•  KTVH-NBC for Helena (plus CW-affiliated subchannel).

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.