Dish Network customers lose WAVY-10, WVBT-43 over contract battle with Nexstar

Dish Network and Nexstar Media are battling it out over money, leaving customers across the country in the lurch.

Hampton Roads Dish customers who tried to tune into WAVY-10 or WVBT-43 Wednesday instead found the channels had disappeared at 7 p.m. just before primetime programming would begin.

“We made a fair offer to keep Nexstar stations available to our customers, but Nexstar rejected it,” Brian Neylon, Dish TV’s group president, said in a news release, calling Nexstar’s fee increase the largest his company had ever seen.

Nexstar also released a statement, pointing back at the satellite television carrier.

“Since July, Nexstar has been negotiating tirelessly and in good faith in an attempt to reach a mutually agreeable multi-year contract with Dish, offering Dish the same fair market rates it offered to other large distribution partners with whom it completed successful negotiations in 2019 and 2020,” the statement read.

Until the media conglomerates squash the squabble, Dish customers won’t have access to either channel.

Amy Poulter, 757-446-2705, amy.poulter@pilotonline.com