Tribune Broadcasting stations have gone dark for DirecTV subscribers after the two parties failed to come to a carriage agreement over the weekend.
“This situation is extremely unfortunate,” Tribune president Nils Larsen said in a statement. “We don’t want anyone to lose the valuable programming we provide, but we simply cannot get fair compensation from DirecTV and we cannot allow DirecTV to continue taking advantage of us.”
DirecTV called Tribune’s actions “the true definition of ‘bad faith,'” saying it had a handshake deal with Tribune on Thursday. The company linked Tribune’s actions to its ongoing financial troubles.
“Threatening station blackouts to extract an exorbitant fee for all of Tribune’s content may provide an improved return for certain banks and hedge funds, but is not in the interest of its viewers and is not a cure for bankruptcy,” DirectTV said in a statement.