Hot Blackout Action! DirecTV and Nexstar Wage Huge Broadcast Retrans Battle … in the Middle of Summer When Fewer People Are Watching

As we were warned, nearly 160 Nexstar Media Group broadcast television network affiliate stations in 113 U.S. TV markets were pulled off of DirecTV pay TV platforms Sunday, with the operator and the station group unable to come to terms on a new broadcast retransmission agreement.

Actually, the blacked-out station count rises to over 200 once outlets owned by groups Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting, but operated by Nexstar, are factored into the kerfuffle.

The rhetorical battle had already started earlier, of course, but it kicked up a notch on Sunday. In fact, DirecTV, which claims Nexstar is trying to double its retrans demands over its previous contract, is calling this the largest local station blackout ever.

“Nexstar has a long track record of forcing programming outages in an effort to unnecessarily raise prices for everyone at the expense of the communities they are licensed and entrusted to serve,” Rob Thun, chief content officer of DirecTV, said in a statement released Sunday.

DirecTV played up Nexstar's recent history of blackouts and near misses. "Since the end of 2022 alone, Nexstar has threatened or removed stations it owns or controls from DirecTV (October 2022), Verizon Fios (October 2022), Comcast Xfinity (December 2022), Dish Network (January 2023), FuboTV (February-March 2023) and Altice USA-Optimum (March 2023)," the operator said in its Sunday press release.

And in case you're wondering why we fight retrans battles,  DirecTV gave us their wartime propaganda video … which we embedded below.

In its own statement, Nexstar played the consumerist angle. “Millions of Americans across the country have lost their access to local news, traffic, weather, sports and entertainment programming, critical updates regarding summer storms and tornadoes, as well as the upcoming battle in soccer for the Women’s World Cup, and Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game,” the station giant said.

DirecTV reaches around 12.75 million pay TV users across its DirecTV satellite, DirecTV Stream and U-verse TV platforms.

With broadcast TV in its lowest usage period for the next two months — or at least until college and NFL football kick off towards the end of August — there are few imperatives driving viewer outcry, so this one could drag on a while.

We'd like to say, you know, “stay tuned,” but right now there’s just nothing to watch.