AT&T, Raycom Reach Carriage Deal After Blackout
Raycom Media said it reached a deal with AT&T U-Verse to restore its stations to U-Verse's lineup in 23 markets. Raycom CEO Pat LaPlatney said “we apologize to our viewers for this inconvenience, and appreciate their patience during the impasse.”…
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In the past three years, the company successfully negotiated retransmission consent agreements with 99.5 percent of operators without service interruption, Raycom said in a Sunday news release. It previously said U-Verse service is far more prone to blackouts since AT&T bought DirecTV in 2015 (see 1703160002). On that Raycom assertion, an AT&T spokesman responded Monday that "no one providing a service to their customers ever wants to take it away. Broadcaster blackouts are a miserable symptom of a decrepit, twenty-five year old 'Cable Act.'" The telco-TV provider separately confirmed it reached a retrans deal with Raycom and said it looks "forward to a productive future relationship with Raycom that meets our customers’ greater expectations."