Friday, May 24, 2013
By Ray Routhier rrouthier@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND — Maine customers of Dish Network are a little closer to losing Portland’s CBS affiliate station.
With neither side reporting any progress, the contract between Dish and Sinclair Broadcast Group – owner of Portland station WGME (Ch. 13) – is scheduled to expire at midnight Wednesday.
If no agreement is reached, that means Dish customers will lose WGME from their channel lineups, until a new agreement is reached. The contract, among other things, dictates how much Dish pays Sinclair for the right to air its stations.
Neither side will talk about specifics of the stalemate, but a press release put out by Dish this week said Sinclair was asking for a “massive” price increase. But a Sinclair press release said the requested increases are “substantially lower” than what Dish pays for “other far less popular channels.”
Spokesmen for both sides said Wednesday morning that talks were continuing but there were no new developments to report. Both sides declined to say how many Dish customers in Maine would be affected by a blackout of WGME.
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