So if you turned on your television today and you subscribe to ATT cable and satellite, you found that NBC affiliate Channel 4 (in Little Rock) was off the air. A message from ATT on the screen reads: Nexstar, the owner of this station, has removed it from your lineup despite our request to keep it available to you.”

The station went off the air at midnight last night. ATT, at its tvpromise.com site, gives the following explanation:

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“We had hoped to prevent Nexstar from removing its stations from your TV channel lineup. We even offered Nexstar more money to keep their stations available. However, Nexstar simply said no and chose to remove them instead. By doing so, Nexstar has put you in the center of its negotiations.

“Nexstar pulls or threatens to pull their stations from the customers of TV providers to increase fees for stations far beyond their value. They’ve done it to Cox Cable, DISH, and Charter Spectrum, and now they’re doing it to us.

The four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) have together lost about half their primetime audience over the past few years. Despite this, Nexstar is demanding the largest increase that AT&T has ever seen from any content provider.

Nexstar explains things differently, not suprisingly. From Business Wire: 

IRVING, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Effective 11:59 p.m. local time on July 3, direct broadcast satellite service provider DIRECTV and AT&T U-verse unilaterally dropped the network and local community programming for over 120 stations impacting consumers and viewers in 97 markets across the United States. The action follows DIRECTV ’s refusal to accept an offer of an unconditional extension of the existing distribution agreement to August 2 to allow the stations’ owner, Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc. (“Nexstar”) and DIRECTV/AT&T to reach a new agreement allowing the direct broadcast satellite service provider (as well as AT&T’s U-verse systems and its subscription streaming television service, DIRECTV NOW) the right to continue to air the highly rated programming.

I’m not sure what all that means. Sinclair owns the ABC affiliate in Little Rock; Tegna Inc. owns the CBS affiliate here. So, no more “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Thank goodness we can still get Stephen Colbert.

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