ALBANY — A dispute between satellite and digital carrier DirecTV and a local Fox affiliate, which blacked out the World Series and Super Bowl, has landed in federal court.
In a complaint filed last week, DirecTV is suing Nexstar Media Group and affiliated broadcast companies White Knight and Mission Broadcasting, which carries Fox in the Capital Region’s market.
The El Segundo, Calif.-based DirecTV claims Nexstar is violating anti-trust laws with the help of White Knight and Mission Broadcasting.
“Mission and White Knight are now unlawfully coordinating with Nexstar to raise prices and extract supercompetitive retransmission consent fees from DIRECTV,” reads the complaint filed in New York’s Southern District court.
The complaint acknowledges that the blackout of the local Fox affiliate, which started back in the fall, has prompted DirecTV customers to end their subscriptions and switch to other viewing options.
The precise number of people who have quit DirecTV, however, is redacted in the legal complaint. While DirecTV provides service through satellite dishes, it also works like many other television streaming services, such as YouTubeTV, Hulu and Sling, to provide through an app what was previously only available as traditional cable programming.
Satellite companies, like cable firms, bring their customers a variety of programming by paying retransmission fees to the content providers such as Fox or other networks.
But Mission and White Knight are contending that Nexstar is asking too much for the content.
The lawsuit provides a mini-window into how the complex satellite TV business works.
In order to get around anti-trust laws regarding broadcasting, the Irving,Texas-based Nexstar works with “sidecar” networks, or smaller companies like White Knight or Mission.
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