Scripps Local Media’s 54 broadcast stations across 36 Nielsen-designated market areas have been suspended beginning at 7pm ET Sunday, as the third-largest operator of ABC affiliates and DirecTV have “reached an impasse over retransmission rates with both sides laying blame at each other’s proverbial feet.” With dozens of television stations going dark, DirecTV noted the outage will impact voters ahead of key state and local primary elections in June and disrupt live sports events like the upcoming NBA finals on ABC and the U.S. Open golf tournament on NBC. Scripps operates 17 ABC affiliates, including Las Vegas-based KTNV-ABC, where the Golden Knights will face off against the Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Finals (DEADLINE, 5/31).
National networks, including Ion, which carries WNBA games, are not impacted by the dispute because carriage of those channels falls under a separate, still-active agreement (THE DESK, 5/31).
