In what threatened to be a blackout of NFL games yesterday, in local markets that cover New Orleans Saints’ and Cleveland Browns’ games, DirecTV and Raycom Media reached a new agreement to get 43 local stations back online before the opening Sunday schedule. Still though, in the days leading up to yesterday, Raycom customers were not able to watch other local programming since September 1st when the channels went black.
The two companies were finally able to reach an agreement just in time for customers to watch the 1:00 p.m. local NFL games.
Even with the local blackouts, however, DirecTV customers were given access to NFL Sunday Ticket for the week, as well as The Red Zone and DirecTV Fantasy Zone.
“We thank all of our affected customers for their patience over these past several days and regret that Raycom and too many other broadcast stations are willing to resort to these contrived blackouts to antagonize the public rather than serve it,” said Dan York, chief content officer at DirecTV.
DirecTV called on lawmakers to overhaul what they called an “anti-consumer” retransmission process saying, “broadcast station groups who ransom their content back into their communities at exorbitant fees deserve the scrutiny of the Federal Communications Commission and local Congressional representatives.”
Terms of the agreements were not disclosed.
