By the Daily Post staff
KRON Channel 4 has gone dark on AT&T U-verse cable and AT&T’s DirecTV in a dispute over money.
KRON’s owner, Nexstar, and AT&T have not been able to reach a deal on how much AT&T should pay for Nexstar’s 174 stations serving 39% of the United States including Channel 4 in San Francisco.
At one time, TV stations like Channel 4 made all of their money from advertising. But today as much as half of a local TV station’s revenue comes from cable and satellite services.
AT&T has set up a website devoted to providing its side of the story. It says that Nexstar is “demanding the largest increase that AT&T has ever seen from any content provider.”
“We even offered Nexstar more money to keep their stations available. However, Nexstar simply said ‘no’ and chose to remove them instead. By doing so, Nexstar has put you in the center of its negotiations,” AT&T says on its website.
Nexstar, based in Irving, Texas, says in a statement that it was AT&T who pulled the plug on their stations, and quit negotiating.
Nexstar says it has negotiated agreements with cable companies all over the country without a impasse resulting in the shut off of its stations. But Nexstar says that that shutting off stations has been a common tactic by AT&T and DirecTV in such negotiations.
AT&T tells its customers that if they want to continue watching Nexstar stations like Channel 4, they can set up an antenna and pull the signals off the air.
The impasse comes at an awkward time for Nexstar. It is near a deal to acquire Tribune Media for $4.1 billion, which would make it the No. 1 owner of local TV stations in the U.S. But the deal requires the approval of the Federal Communications Commission, which has frowned on broadcasters using blackouts to settle disputes with cable companies.
If KRON disappeared, would anybody notice?
Yes ! Bring back kron 4. We’re paying full price for partial viewing. We want to be able to watch the shows we like on there.
They got rid of Radnich. Wasn’t that enough saved money?
KRON now runs out the putrid JR Stone. So,I can see why KRON no longer can live on ads only.
Miss Ken Wayne
Let’s get this settled soon.
I am missing Dr Phil
Young Sheldon will be old Sheldon to watch. Come on people, pay the piper and let’s get on with the show must go on…. greeee
Everyone cancel uVerse and direct tV see how that changes things in the good ole USA.
Everyone should cancel U-verse and direct tV, see if that changes things in good ole USA.
Get a $10 antenna from Walmart. Screw Deathstar AT&T.
I want my 9 PM news back. I get up early and can’t stay up until the 10 PM news
And now no CBS on DirecTV either. Think it’s time to ditch cable.
I plan to ditch DirecTV in couple weeks if I don’t coming back channels 4 KRON & 5 CBS.
Yes, I’m going to go out of contract, to cancel. However, they are the ones going out of contract
It is been over a month now since the removal of Kron four and now CBS’s remove also. and there’s been no compensation however still paying full price for your service, don’t you think your customers deserve some type a break if you’re not getting what we paid for because xfinity is offering a better deal with all channels. And if some type of discount isn’t shown to your loyal customers we will be switching to Xfinity because they’re looking pretty good right now
We will just stream and find other good shows to watch. Tired of all the demands from large networks. Dish did it and we changed to Direct. There are so many ways to watch TV now. You are both going to lose.
I called AT&T about losing 4,5 and 44. They cut my bill by $20 and sent me out an antenna that attaches to the box. A friend did the same and they gave him pay-per-view channels for 3 months and an antenna. They will resolve this in the next couple of weeks.