Just in time for Sunday’s National Football League games, Tegna TV stations were back on the Dish Network Sunday in 38 of the largest U.S. markets, after the station group and the satellite broadcaster agreed to a new multi-year carriage deal.
Dish had pulled the plug on Friday night, when the talks broke down.
Tegna, which was formerly Gannett Co., is the largest single owner of NBC and CBS affiliates. The markets it serves include Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans, Portland, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Seattle.
The fact that Sunday’s hugely popular NFL games would have been blacked out no doubt provided impetus for the two sides to make a deal.
The two media giants had been fighting for weeks over the contract, with a temporary truce declared on October 1, in light of Hurricane Joaquin. An eight-day extension of service, designed to get consumers through the impact of the storm, was to end Sunday night.
At the heart of the dispute was Dish’s bid to increase the rates it charges Tegna to get its programming on the satellite network.