AT&T/Sunbeam-WSVN dispute

I agree with ATT on this one.

Basically, sunbeam television (owner of WSVN) decided to jack up the fees for rebroadcast rights and ATT told them to hit the road.  This isn't the first time sunbeam did this; 4 years ago they had a similar outage with directv for almost 2 weeks and those customers almost didn't get to see the superbowl.

Sunbeam is trying to use the very popular television they have excusive local rights to, to fleece the television providers and their customers.  Now if ATT did cave in and pay the higher rate, they either eat it, or pass the cost on to customers, making you hate ATT and not the people who really raised the cost behind the scenes.  This is why you can't watch seahacks and carolina game in english.

Hi,

We are sorry you are having issues accessing that site. The information provided regarding WSVN is the following:

We intend to get WSVN back into your local line-up and apologize for this disruption. The station’s owner Sunbeam Television is prohibiting WSVN’ signal from reaching your home unless they receive a significant increase in their current fees – just to let you keep watching shows that remain available for free over-the-air on channel 7 and often online at fox.com.

Broadcasters blacked out their local communities nearly 200 times in the past year alone, typically trying to get increased fees for conventional “free” broadcast TV. Sunbeam has suspended WSVN from other providers’ customers before, costing hundreds of thousands of loyal Miami fans their usual access to NFL playoff games and other important events. We appreciate your patience as we work to get WSVN back, while trying to resolve this matter quickly, privately and reasonably.

Besides WSVN’s usual over-the-air telecast, FOX Sports is making Sunday’s Seattle Seahawks vs. Carolina Panthers NFL playoff game available live online at FoxSports.com and to any fans using the Fox Sports Go app for Windows 8, iPads or Android-enabled tablet devices.

-ATTU-verseCare

I cannot watch a nationally broadcast NFL game on Uverse? That stinks. Can I pay you less because you do not deliver the full programming line up? Or do I need to switch to another provider in order to get what I pay for?

http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article55119155.html

This is total nonsense.  Not broadcasting a playoff game...are you kidding me.

Please reinstate WSVN channel 7. I  know you were having a contractual disagreement with them but if it s not resolved soon I will have to cancel my Uverse service.

Why are you not blaming Sunbeam for trying to gouge AT&T.

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@drynning wrote:

I just checked out 655, and yes, at least you can see the game.  Also available on 1655, again broadcast in Spanish, but at least you can see it. 

Though I agree, if the broadcast is available in Spanish, why not in English?!!

 

thanks!

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@drynning wrote:

I just checked out 655, and yes, at least you can see the game.  Also available on 1655, again broadcast in Spanish, but at least you can see it. 

Though I agree, if the broadcast is available in Spanish, why not in English?!!

 

thanks!

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The broadcast avaialble in English from Fox, just as the Spanish version is available from Fox. The Spanish version is shown on Fox Deportes. The English version is being carried on Fox, via your local affiliate. The owners of your local affiliate having chosen not to send the signal to Uverse (and, thus, its customers). 

I realize that there are alredy several threads on this topic, but here is what I want to know.

1.) Why does it seem like there were supposedly behind-the-scenes negotiations over the last couple of days (or longer), and then all the sudden come 12:01AM on Sunday January 17, the signal goes black?

2.) Why refer customers to att.com/fightingforyou for details on why the channel is not available? Seems like a notice could have been posted at att.com/uverse where probably most customers go to on a daily basis. That notice could have been posted alerting customers to the negotiation issues.

3.) It's convenient that the station manager "orders" AT&T to stop broadcasting the channel on a day when there are football playoffs AND with the superbowl coming up. Why do the customers always get put in the middle of the disputes and have to suffer with channel outages. If I were to contact WSVN, they would say that AT&T is making unreasonable demands to have the channel available to its customers. AT&T is certainly saying the same thing about WSVN.  

WSVN is a Fox affiliate.  

While the NFC Championship is on Fox next week, the AFC Championship is on CBS as is the SuperBowl on Feb. 7. 

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@c_brookhart wrote:
After searching online for at&t wsvn, I found that an article was posted in the Miami Herald on Wednesday January 13 stating that customers could potentially lose access to the channel. What I don't get is why there was no similar advance notice from at&t, instead of just having customers turn on their TV's on Sunday morning and find out for themselves that the channel was no longer available?

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There is info here under local stations:

http://uverseonline.att.net/web_files/NEXTGEN/web_files/uverse-custom/one-offs/fighting-4-you/dk_fighting4you.html

ATT can't let you know in advance, it was Sunbeam that cut them off and refused to extend the channel on Uverse.  They have done this a number of times before w/other providers.

Chris
__________________________________________________________

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@c_brookhart wrote:

I realize that there are alredy several threads on this topic, but here is what I want to know.

 

1.) Why does it seem like there were supposedly behind-the-scenes negotiations over the last couple of days (or longer), and then all the sudden come 12:01AM on Sunday January 17, the signal goes black?

 

2.) Why refer customers to att.com/fightingforyou for details on why the channel is not available? Seems like a notice could have been posted at att.com/uverse where probably most customers go to on a daily basis. That notice could have been posted alerting customers to the negotiation issues.

 

3.) It's convenient that the station manager "orders" AT&T to stop broadcasting the channel on a day when there are football playoffs AND with the superbowl coming up. Why do the customers always get put in the middle of the disputes and have to suffer with channel outages. If I were to contact WSVN, they would say that AT&T is making unreasonable demands to have the channel available to its customers. AT&T is certainly saying the same thing about WSVN.  

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1) There have likely been negotiations going on for months to get a new contract signed. The contract probably expired at the end of December, so techinically the station could have stopped Uverse for receiving the signal starting January 1. 

2) The fighting for you website is where AT&T posts these disputes. I don't know why, but they've been doing so for years. 

3) It wouldn't surprise me if choosing an NFL playoff day to end the signal was very calculated. 

The customers are "caught in the middle" because that's how service is set up. Each of the parties is caught in the middle of the other two.