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Super Bowl Blackout Looms For Some In New England

Contract Dispute Between WHDH, DirecTV Threatens Broadcast

POSTED: 7:41 pm EST January 24, 2012
UPDATED: 7:48 pm EST January 24, 2012
BOSTON -- Some New England television viewers may be unable to watch the New England Patriots play in the Super Bowl, unless a dispute between the owners of WHDH-TV and DirecTV is resolved before Feb. 5.
The battle between Sunbeam Television, which owns WHDH, and the satellite provider centers on so-called retransmission fees, the amount WHDH is paid to allow DirecTV to carry its signal.
The potential for a Super Bowl blackout has gotten the attention of both Massachusetts Senators. John Kerry and Scott Brown have written to Sunbeam demanding that they allow the Super Bowl broadcast to DirecTV subscribers.
“I want every bar owner and family in our region with a subscription to DirecTV to know that they will not become collateral damage in a dispute leveraged up against the most important game of the NFL season,” Kerry wrote to Sunbeam Tuesday.
Some 200,000 DirecTV subscribers would be effected.
“It is outrageous that subscribers would pay hundreds of dollars a year for service and not get to watch the Super Bowl, the biggest television event of the year,” Brown wrote last week.
An email to WHDH seeking comment was not answered.
However, last Sunday, Sunbeam, which also owns a television station in Miami, declared a one-day truce and allowed DirecTV to carry the NFC championship game in that city.

[Rugda]

CHOWDA!!!!

[CathBraunn]

Good, probably my least favorite fans to be around in real life. Couldn't happen to a bigger group of collective douches.