DirecTV viewers may lose access to KLEW

Lewiston’s CBS affiliate, KLEW, is one of 136 Sinclair Broadcast Group television stations that might not be carried by AT&T’s DirecTV starting this afternoon.

The two companies are struggling to reach an agreement in a retransmission dispute, even though both sides have indicated they are negotiating in good faith.

KLEW produces weekday news programs and is Lewiston’s only television station.

“Although it would be unfortunate to lose AT&T and DirecTV as customers, we are simply not prepared to sell our programming to them at the below market rates they are demanding due to their overwhelming market power,” said Sinclair Senior Vice President and General Counsel David Gibbler in a prepared statement.

AT&T’s take is that Sinclair is driving up what “it collects for content that is offered free over the air,” said Ryan Oliver, a spokesman for AT&T, in an email.

The possibility that KLEW might not be aired through DirecTV comes in the same year that two other stations serving north central Idaho and southeastern Washington stopped being a part of the DirecTV lineup.

KHQ-NBC in Spokane went dark on DirecTV on Sept. 4, and KAYU-FOX 28 in Spokane was pulled Feb. 22.

Oliver contends that the owner of KHQ-NBC and seven other stations in Washington and Montana is “demanding a substantial fee increase.”

Patricia McRae, president of KHQ Inc. and Cowles Montana Media, disagrees.

“It’s over language, not over price,” she said. “... We have to protect the broadcast signal and how they retransmit it, and we can’t come to terms on the language.”

The issues with DirecTV and Northwest Broadcasting, the owner of KAYU-FOX 28, along with 17 other stations, are different, said Jon Rand, chief operations officer of Northwest Broadcasting.

DirecTV wants to eliminate language from its agreement that allowed Northwest Broadcasting to add stations to DirecTV when it made acquisitions, he said.

“They are trying to block our company from being able to grow,” Rand said.

AT&T’s handling of the disputes reflects the wishes of its customers, Oliver said.

“Customers are sending a clear message they don’t want to keep paying more for channels they no longer care as much about, or that offer their shows for free over the air and often online,” he said.

While DirecTV works through the disagreements, another satellite television company, Dish, is having similar issues.

Fox’s cable sports networks and some local networks went dark on Dish on Thursday because of a dispute over the networks’ cost, according to an Associated Press story.

That conflict does not involve KAYU-FOX 28 or affect its availability on Dish, said David Lockhert, the station’s general manager.

Viewers who have lost a local station through a satellite service have the option of installing antennas in order to receive those channels, Lockhert said.

Typically, the devices work better in flat areas and worse in places where canyon walls and mountains interfere with signals.

“The quality can be better or it can be not as good,” Lockhert said.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.