CBS Corp. and Dish Network resolved their carriage-fee dispute by agreeing to a new distribution deal, restoring CBS station signals to millions of Dish customers across the country.

The agreement, struck Thursday night, ended the three-day blackout that began late Monday when CBS walked away from the bargaining table feeling that the two sides were not making sufficient progress in the talks.

The blackout affected nearly 4 million Dish Network subscriber homes in 18 cities nationwide. Those customers went without their local CBS stations on Thanksgiving, annoying sports fans who missed seeing NFL football on the network.

Deal terms were not disclosed.

CBS had demanded a sizable increase in the retransmission fees it charges Dish for the rights to retransmit its TV station signals. The Englewood, Colo., satellite television provider, which is grappling with customer attrition, was reluctant to pay a huge premium for a broadcast network that also has faced viewership declines. The new deal includes retransmission consent for CBS-owned TV stations.

Carriage of three cable channels — CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel and Pop — were included in the deal.

Dish had offered to install an over-the-air antenna for most customers affected by the outage so they could continue to receive CBS. Dish also promised to reduce subscribers’ bills by $10 per month if they agreed to drop local TV stations from their lineup.

There is tension between network owners like CBS and pay-TV distributors such as Dish. The satellite and cable companies have lost millions of customers to cord-cutting in recent years. At the same time, CBS and other content companies have asked for huge increases in the fees they receive for their programming to pay for rising sports rights fees and other programming costs.

There have been 212 programming blackouts on various pay-TV systems in 2017 – more than double the number from last year, according to the American Television Alliance, a Washington-based group that represents cable and satellite TV providers. That compares with just eight blackouts in 2010.


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