CBS And Altice USA Reach Carriage Deal

Dade Hayes

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As an impasse with AT&T continues into a second week, CBS Corp. has reached a carriage deal with Altice USA, a major cable provider.

The new deal covers retransmission consent for CBS-owned stations and the carriage of Showtime, CBS Sports Network, Pop TV and Smithsonian Channel on the Optimum and Suddenlink cable systems run by Altice.

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Financial terms were not disclosed.

Under the deal, Altice will also be able to continue offering the Showtime digital streaming service to its broadband customers. That option has been a sticking point in relations with AT&T, whose request to offer CBS All Access in the manner that Amazon and Roku do has been rebuffed.

“We are pleased to strike a fair marketplace deal with Altice for CBS, Showtime, CBS Sports Network, Pop TV and Smithsonian Channel well in advance of our expiration and without any disruption to consumers. We appreciate the value Altice places on delivering America’s #1 network to its customers,” said Ray Hopkins, President, Television Networks Distribution, CBS Corporation. “Altice is a great partner, and we look forward to continuing to bring our highly-rated programming and exclusive major sporting events to all of Altice’s customers.”

“Altice USA is committed to delivering a wide array of high-quality content for our customers at competitive, fair rates, and this new agreement with CBS allows us to meet that objective,” said Yossi Benchetrit, Head of Programming for Altice USA. “We are pleased to extend our longstanding partnership with CBS, enabling the CBS network portfolio to remain available to our customers as part of Altice’s Optimum and Suddenlink TV lineups.”

CBS-owned stations in 14 markets remain dark on AT&T-owned DirecTV, DirecTV Now and U-verse cable systems.

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