After five months of contract extensions, and now five weeks with our station blocked out from Dish subscribers, we are incredibly frustrated by Dish's false claims about our dispute. Scripps, the parent company of NewsChannel 5, is working hard to negotiate a deal that is standard and normal - the kind of deal we have successfully made with every other TV distributor in markets all across the country. Meanwhile, Dish is fighting to take control of our signal - something we cannot allow.
At this point, we recommend that Dish customers seek out a different service. Every other TV distributor in Tennessee has made a fair deal with us, and continues to carry NewsChannel 5. It appears that Dish is not interested in reaching that kind of fair agreement. We don't want you to miss all that NewsChannel 5 has to offer, including the #1 rated newscasts in every single time period - morning till night. If you stick with Dish, you will also miss the great programming that's coming up in the next few weeks on our station, including:
- Tennessee Titans football games
- SEC Football, including the Tennessee Volunteers
- The Academy of Country Music's ACM Awards
- The Amazing Race
- Undercover Boss
- and Star Trek: Discovery
Dish isn't being honest with its customers. Scripps has not asked for a 250% rate hike. What is true is that Dish has little motivation to seek a deal: Dish's profitability improves by several million dollars each month by not distributing Scripps stations all across the country, including NewsChannel 5. While this battle grows profits for Dish, its customers -- who are locked into Dish's monthly charges for stations they're not receiving -- miss out on the news, weather and sports programming they rely on.
Scripps is a fair and reasonable negotiator. This is the only time in Scripps' history that the company has had a blackout with any TV signal distributor. Earlier this year, Scripps successfully reached agreements on two new contracts with cable and satellite providers even larger than Dish. We know the appropriate industry terms, and we will not agree to a deal that gives Dish complete control over our local station signals. It is because of unreasonable demands like these that Dish is also at an impasse with local Cox stations across the nation, the NFL Network, and dozens of regional sports networks -- all while their profits grow, and their customers pay for things they are not getting.
We continue to provide our station free over the air. We even upgraded our over the air signal this past summer to be even stronger than ever. We also are available on all other cable and satellite competitors including DirectTV, Hulu, YouTubeTV and CBS All Access.
