Fox has reached a new carriage agreement with Dish and Sling.
The broadcast network and its cable channels had been blacked out in 17 markets spanning 23 states since Sept. 26, which means certain subscribers to those services missed one Sunday and two Thursdays of NFL action, Friday’s debut of WWE show “Friday Night SmackDown” and last night’s Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees ALDS game on FS1, as well as other programming.
“We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Dish and Sling, and they are immediately restoring their subscribers’ access to the Fox networks and television stations,” a spokesman for Fox Corporation said in a statement. “We are grateful to our viewers for their patience during this disruption.”
“We appreciate our customers’ patience as we worked to reach a long-term agreement that restores the Fox networks and local broadcast stations,” Dish added in a statement of its own.
Those are different tunes than the two companies had previously sung.
“Taken together, Fox’s actions are profoundly anti-consumer,” Dish’s SVP or programming Andy LeCuyer said a week and a half ago. “Fox is raising prices and turning its back on its public obligation to provide channels to consumers for free. It’s clear that Fox cares more about padding its bottom line than serving its viewers.”
“Dish/Sling is at it again, choosing to drop leading programming as a negotiating tactic regardless of the impact on its own customers. Dish/Sling elected to drop Fox networks in an effort to coerce us to agree to outrageous demands,” Fox said at the time. “While we regret this is Dish/Sling’s preferred approach to negotiating, we remind our loyal viewers that the Fox services are widely available through every other major television provider.”