After the retrans dispute between DirecTV and Raycom was settled Sunday, you’d think each company would forgive and forget, after all they’ll have to negotiate all over again one day. Instead, each company took a parting shot at the other on their company websites.
On Sunday, DirecTV posted:
“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.
Advertisement“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. Raycom’s intentional recent black outs of DISH, Cox and now DIRECTV customers creates an even greater sense of urgency for lawmakers to review and overhaul this anti-consumer retransmission consent process once and for all.”
Raycom later posted:
Raycom Media is a company built on local news. As journalists we pride ourselves on sticking to The Facts as opposed to the conjecture and opinion DirecTV is sending to customers and Washington.
Raycom then posted its facts. See what else Raycom said about DirecTV after the jump.
Here’s the rest of what Raycom posted:
- DirecTV earned $2.3 BILLION dollars in 2013, and their profits were up 14%, yet they profess to be “fighting to hold costs down for their subscribers.”
- DirecTV has removed stations from its lineup at least 12 times in the last 3 years as a negotiating and political tactic, including another broadcaster, just last week.
- Since our last agreement with DirecTV, Raycom Media has successfully negotiated more than 200 agreements without disruption to our viewers. That’s a 99% success rate.
- In the history of our company only 3 providers have removed our stations from their system-DirecTV being one of them.
- Raycom Media looks forward to working with DirecTV to turn our agreement in principle into a final, fully-binding document. We fully support the terms both parties agreed to Sunday and hope DirecTV will too.