Dish, Sinclair Reach 3-Months' Delayed Carriage Deal

• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, 6 hours ago

After a series of short-term extensions since their previous carriage agreement expired in mid-August, satellite provider Dish Network and Sinclair Broadcast Group have reached a new multi-year deal.

The deal keeps Sinclair’s 144 local TV stations in 85 markets on the Dish TV satellite service and keeps Sinclair’s Tennis Channel on Dish TV and Sling TV.

The deal does not include carriage of Sinclair’s Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks (RSNs).

That dashes sports leagues’ hope that Dish — which dropped the RSNs in summer 2019 — could use its TV stations as leverage to get the RSNs reinstated.

In mid October, Tegna dropped its local stations from Dish TV after carriage renegotiations failed. The two companies have continued to exchange accusations, and Dish has filed a "bad faith" complaint against Tegna with the Federal Communications Commission