Dish, Hearst Blackout Reaches Two-Week Milestone

Hearst Television’s blackout of its 33 television stations to Dish customers across the country has reached the two-week milestone and Dish has an easy solution: Give them the same deal the broadcaster gave DirecTV.

Hearst stations in 26 markets went dark to Dish customers on March 3 after the two could not reach a retransmission consent agreement.

This is not the first time Dish has asked for the DirecTV deal – it posed the same solution in a video message to customers on March 9. And while it would seem like a logical solution – DirecTV and Dish are both satellite TV service providers – the comparisons pretty much end there.

Related: Dish Completes EchoStar DBS Asset Transfer

DirecTV is the largest pay TV service provider in the country and with parent AT&T’s U-verse TV and internet service, has about 25 million video customers nationwide. Dish has 13.7 million video customers, including subscribers of its over-the-top service, Sling TV.

Go to Multichannel.com for the full story.