Boise DIRECTV Customers Finally Have Access to Popular Boise TV Station

It’s been more than 40 days since DirecTV customers in Boise and 50 other cities have been able to watch certain local news channels. The satellite and streaming TV provider was locked in a dispute with TENGA. 

What Was the Dispute?

The two companies could not agree on a “fair market” rate for content shown on 64 stations owned by TENGA, the parent company of KTVB in Boise, KING 5 in Seattle and KGW 8 in Portland. DIRECTV said the rate that TENGA wanted for their content would make it the most expensive broadcaster on their national platform. TENGA pushed people to switch providers, expressing their disappointment that DIRECTV won’t let people out of their contracts. DIRECTV initially posted about the outage on November 30. 

During the outage, DirecTV customers didn’t just miss out on local new broadcasts, but major TV events like Sunday Night Football, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting and season finales for The Voice and Saturday Night Live. 

Deal Reached in Time for NFL Super Wild Card Weekend

Not all of the TENGA stations are NBC affiliates, but a significant amount of them are. NBC was scheduled to air Wild Card match-ups between the Cleveland Browns and Huston Texans on Saturday, January 13 and Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions on Sunday, January 14. DirecTV customers would have had to subscribe to or try a free trial of Peacock, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV or FuboTV to see the in-market games that were supposed to air on their TENGA station. 

Football fans (and television fans) caught a break shortly before the first Wild Card game was set to kickoff. DirecTV posted the following message on their “insider” page: 

DIRECTV and TEGNA have reached a new multi-year distribution agreement covering TEGNA’s 64 owned stations in 51 Nielsen designated markets. All stations and programming will return to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and U-verse customers today.

 

As DirecTV customers, we’ve confirmed that KTVB has returned to local subscribers. 

Would You Have Gotten Back NBC Anyway?

What we find particularly interesting is the deal was reached about 11 days after StreamTV Insider  reported that DirecTV began testing the delivery of a national NBC feed to subscribers who were without their local affiliate. In an interview with the website, DirecTV’s Chief Programming Executive said: 

We don't need the stations to deliver the network content — we can go get it from the network. So, why don't we work on that construct?

The interview leaves readers feeling that DirecTV believes that local broadcasters are the most dispensable part of their programming. 

Big Changes at KTVB

As we reported, when DirecTV customers in Boise could eventually watch the local station again, the line-up for several of their newscasts would look very different after a series of personnel moves. Catch up on those HERE.