Hearst Says Dish Blackout May Not End Soon

Hearst Television said a blackout of its stations on Dish Network may not end soon, among answers to FAQs it released Monday to viewers on its stations' websites. Dish saying the retransmission consent spat may end shortly is false, Hearst said. "Unfortunately, we can’t predict how long this impasse will last. In the past several years, DISH has had numerous outages that have lasted for months." Hearst said it "won't point fingers" after Dish said the TV-station owner is at fault, but "have you ever asked yourself why DISH seems to experience more blackouts and outages than other pay-TV distributors?" A Dish spokesman referred us to the company's previous letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. (see 1703200043) that said the interruption could end now if Hearst took the company's offer to take the same deal as DirecTV. Separately, AT&T's DirecTV ended a carriage dispute with Raycom (see 1703270017).