Benzinga | Oct 18, 2021 12:55PM EDT

DISH Files Complaint With FCC Against Tegna Related To Removal Of 'local stations from millions of DISH TV subscribers in 53 markets across the country'

DISH today filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against Tegna Inc. after it removed its local stations from millions of DISH TV subscribers in 53 markets across the country.

"Tegna turned its back on its public interest obligation and failed to engage in good faith retransmission consent negotiations with DISH," said Andy LeCuyer, DISH SVP of Programming. "Tegna's demands were both unreasonable and inconsistent. This behavior negatively impacts DISH subscribers, and we expect Tegna's bad behavior to only get worse as the programmer looks to sell its stations to the highest bidder. As a result, we have filed a formal complaint with the FCC to address Tegna's blatant disregard of the Commission's rules."

The complaint outlines Tegna's bad faith actions during negotiations, including appearing to demand that DISH pay for all subscribers in a local market whether they purchase local programming from DISH or not, and appearing to demand that DISH pay for viewers who are no longer subscribers of DISH. Tegna's demands would have totaled nearly a billion dollars in fees.

DISH's complaint against Tegna Inc. can be found here.