Outage Affects Two Million Local Viewers in 42 Markets Across the Country and Nexstar’s National Cable News Network, NewsNation
Today at 5 p.m. ET, Altice USA removed from its Optimum cable systems the network and local programming provided by Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXST) on 63 local television stations in 42 markets across the country. Altice also removed Nexstar’s national cable news network, NewsNation, from its cable system, with a new Congress taking office and the Presidential inauguration less than two weeks away. Altice has decided to deprive more than two million Americans of critical local news, the NFL Playoffs, live sports and other entertainment programming, as well as essential alerts regarding winter weather and natural disasters.
Nexstar has tried to engage in good faith negotiations with Altice since October, only to have Altice refuse to do so by repeatedly demanding special terms that are wildly out of step with both our longstanding relationship and the cable television marketplace.
“Altice has consistently made unreasonable and unprecedented demands of Nexstar, culminating with their decision to walk away from the negotiations,” said Michael Biard, Nexstar’s President and Chief Operating Officer. “Unfortunately, this seems to be a regular pattern of behavior for Altice, which dropped the MSG Network just last week, depriving millions of New York sports fans the opportunity to see their favorite teams in action. We understand the difficulty of Altice’s financial situation, burdened as it is by billions in debt, but the solution isn’t to force Optimum subscribers to continually pay more while getting less.”
About Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXST) is a leading diversified media company that produces and distributes engaging local and national news, sports and entertainment content across its television and digital platforms, including more than 310,000 hours of programming produced annually by its business units. Nexstar owns America’s largest local television broadcasting group comprised of top network affiliates, with 200 owned or partner stations in 116 U.S. markets reaching 220 million people. Nexstar’s national television properties include The CW, America’s fifth major broadcast network, NewsNation, our national news network providing “News for All Americans,” popular entertainment multicast networks Antenna TV and Rewind TV, and a 31.3% ownership stake in TV Food Network. The Company’s portfolio of digital assets, including its local TV station websites, The Hill and NewsNationNow.com, are collectively a Top 10 U.S. digital news and information property. For more information, please visit nexstar.tv.
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