Earlier today, Nexstar and Sinclair agreed a new multi-year extension of their The CW Network affiliate partnership, and that deal is now resulting in DirecTV Stream (and DirecTV) subscribers in various markets regaining access to The CW.
Back in July, DirecTV and Nexstar found themselves in the middle of a dispute, which resulted in a large number of Nexstar-owned stations being removed from the DirecTV and DirecTV Stream channel lineups. As part of that mass channel removal, many subscribers lost access to their local CW channels.
Following today’s announcement, however, The CW is now due to be restored to DirecTV and DirecTV Stream subscribers in 21 markets. This is being made possible thanks to the deal including “rights that allow us [Sinclair] to negotiate with virtual MVPDs for CW-affiliated stations.”
Even though Sinclair doesn’t own all 21 stations, it does control the ones it doesn’t own through management services agreements. As a result, the following 21 markets are now expected to see The CW return to DirecTV and DirecTV Stream tomorrow (Sept. 1):
- Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY (WCWN)
- Baltimore, MD (WNUV)
- Birmingham, AL (WTTO)
- Champaign, IL (WBUI)
- Chattanooga, TN (WFLI)
- Columbus, OH (WWHO)
- Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, MI (WBSF)
- Fresno-Visalia, CA (KFRE)
- Green Bay, WI (WCWF)
- Las Vegas, NV (KVCW)
- Milwaukee, WI (WVTV)
- Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN (WUCW)
- Myrtle Beach-Florence, SC (WPDE-DT)
- Nashville, TN (WZTV-DT)
- Oklahoma City, OK (KOCB)
- Omaha, NE (KPTM-DT)
- Raleigh-Durham, NC (WLFL)
- San Antonio, TX (WOAI-DT)
- Tallahassee, FL-Thomasville, GA (WTLF)
- West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL (WTVX)
- Wilkes Barre-Scranton, PA (WSWB)
In a statement to Next TV, a DirecTV representative said, “We’re certainly pleased that Sinclair seems to have seized the right to provide its viewers, and our customers, the programming they should have always retained in the first place.”
The rest of the channels is this dispute, the ones owned by Nexstar, will continue to remain unavailable through DirecTV and DirecTV Stream, and up until some form of an agreement between the two is made.
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