Business News

KATC parent co. and Dish settle

by Walter Pierce

After a three-day blackout on Dish Network, Cordillera Communications stations across the country including KATC TV3 in Lafayette are again being transmitted by the satellite provider.

Cordillera and Dish were at odds after months of negotiating the fee cable and satellite providers pay to station owners for the right to re-transmit their signals. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to have reached a multi-year agreement with Dish for carriage of our stations,” Cordillera President Terrance Hurley says in a Sunday-afternoon press release announcing the latest development. “We want to thank our loyal viewers for their patience as we worked hard to negotiate with Dish to restore essential local coverage. At its core, disputes such as this are about protecting the future of local broadcasting in the communities we serve, a cause to which Cordillera remains fundamentally committed.”

Cordillera’s 72-hour absence from Dish, the nation’s No. 2 satellite provider, is not the first time the communications company has had a re-transmission fee dispute leading to a blackout. In January of 2015 the company’s 15 stations located mainly in the western U.S. and parts of the Southeast went black for 10 days on DirecTV.