BANGOR, Maine — As of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, network programming from CBS and the CW was turned off for DirecTV subscribers in Bangor’s designated market area, or DMA.
“After ignoring requests not to disrupt customers’ programming, Diversified Communications last night took away its three local broadcast stations from DirecTV customers in an attempt to force DirecTV to accept onerous terms on a new programming contract,” DirecTV said in a press release Tuesday morning, referring to the Portland-based company that owns the CBS network affiliate in Bangor, WABI-TV, the Bangor CW affiliate, WABI-DT2, and the Gainesville, Fla., ABC affiliate, WCJB. “Diversified is demanding more than 300 percent what they currently receive, well beyond the same payments for any local broadcast stations of similar popularity and reach.”
Mike Young, general manager of Community Broadcasting System, the licensee for both Bangor stations, bristled at that description of what Community is asking for as compensation for carrying WABI-TV and WABI-DT2.
“They’re reportedly saying we’re asking for gigantic payments in terms of compensation,” Young said. “The fact is, all the points of the contract that needed to be addressed have been and we have acquiesced on virtually everything they asked us to, including the amount of money we’re asking them to pay us on a per-subscriber basis, so the one remaining consideration is compensation to the station.”
In a statement Tuesday, Dan Hartman, DirecTV’s senior vice president of programming acquisitions, said “we have no problem compensating Diversified Communications fairly, but their unwarranted demand for more than 300 percent above what they are receiving now threatens to increase our customers’ monthly bills.”
Young said there have been no talks or negotiations between his company and DirecTV since Friday.
“I wish they were ongoing. We’ve not heard back from DirecTV since we extended an invitation to continue negotiations last Friday,” Young said.
DirecTV’s press release referred to the current period as a “brief interruption” and to negotiations as ongoing, saying, “While we regret Diversified Communications’ action, we appreciate DirecTV customers’ patience as we work toward a resolution that will continue to result in their enjoying the best video experience at the most reasonable cost.”
The stalemate between WABI’s ownership group and DirecTV affects DirecTV subscribers in the Bangor DMA, which includes Greater Bangor and the six counties surrounding Bangor. That translates roughly into about 250,000 total homes, not all of which represent DirecTV subscribers.
In the meantime, there are some possible alternatives for affected DirecTV subscribers in the Bangor DMA.
According to DirecTV, many subscribers in Bangor already qualify to receive an alternate station with the same network affiliation, so DirecTV has already authorized their accounts. Viewers can also see their favorite CBS, ABC or CW shows by going to www.cbs.com and clicking “watch,” going to www.abc.com and clicking “shows,” or going to www.cwtv.com and clicking “full episodes.”
So glad I have DISH!!!
careful what you say! I had Dish Network in the past and had a similar thing happen, it was resolved in not too long a time, as I hope this one will be as well
The good thing is though folks who have Directv already have their accounts authorized so they have the chance to get an alternate CBS and CW affiiliate . Most likely from the Portland , Boston or Presque Isle areas. For the junk that WABI and WABI-DT2 puts on the air if those folks who have WABI and WABI-DT 2 (CW) they should look into the alternate affiliates. Because it would offer them better programming in the long run , and they wouldn’t have to put up with the possible massive increase in their bills.
It’s the New York affiliate, Not Portland, Boston or Presque Isle.
To your suggestion that we should look into the other affiliates for better programming in the long run….that’s not possible. It is not allowed.
Any affiliate is better than what WABI and WABI-DT 2 (Cw) offers other than its local sports and the NFL in the fall it offers nothing. But CBS AND CW are 2 of the worst of the 5 Networks. The programming is awful too many stupid reality programs on both. Actually all of the Networks have fallen into that trap of promoting to see who will be the next Snooki , The Next Kardashians , Next Real Housewives of the Next City in America. The fact is whatever affiliate Directv offers is better than paying for the huge 300% increase that WABI wants.
All of the networks are doing the same thing in regards to stupid reality shows. However, WABI is the only “local” channel covering Eastern Maine when it comes to news, providing “local” sports, etc. If WABI is asking for a 300% increase, that is absurd!!
It is being reported in a previous article from the other day that Diversified Communications (WABI & WABI-DT2) wants a 300% increase and Directv said no that they will hold out. That they will authorize customers accounts to give them a chance to get the alternate affiliate CBS AND CW programming. I think you will see the end of WABI AND WABI-DT2 (CW) for awhile. Those who don’t take the alternate option will miss out on their CBS AND CW programming.
Customers in Bangor only have been switched to another affiliate. The customers outside of Bangor are not being given a different CBS channel. I called this morning and vehemently complained about this, as I am not happy about this fact. I plan on continuing to call them until I get switched over to another affiliate too.
yeah, in Etna I don’t qualify…
I am glad I switched to dish recently as well. I can do without WABI AND THE CW only problem is NFL season and maybe a couple of UMAINE games once in a while. But thankfully they have a variety so you don’t worry about that station.
I’ll tell you what if I were buying ad space with WABI or the CW I would be asking for some of my money back because you just lost 250,000 viewers seeing local commericals as apposed to national ones.
That would be true if every single one of the 250,000 viewers in the area described were DirecTV customers. As the article clearly stated, they are not.
According to what I read, 37% of those watching WABI are watching it on DirecTV. That would be…92,500 ad-revenue watching customers WABI just lost.
I just tried to search that figure, to no avail. Could you please post a link? Thank you.
I think it was in the story I saw posted on the BDN this morning (in the comments, that is.) Accurate? I don’t know. But haven’t seen any numbers to dispute it either.
Are there really 250,000 -Direct TV subscribers in the eastern Maine area?
There are 250,000 viewers in the market area. 37% of which are DirecTV subscribers.
That is still 92,500 households.
Yes, that’s what I said earlier today (see other posts)
Actually I believe alot of folks are now using satellite now . Because Cable is unaffordable and its programming choices don’t come close to what Directv and Dish Network offer and the price for both are lower than cable. So they are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars at least if not more. The only good thing about WABI is the news, NFL Football and its local sports programming , the rest is junk mostly reality shows now so folks aren’t missing much.
Not everybody is thrilled to get sports stations galore. Some of what you call junk, others call entertainment.
Yeah everyone loves seeing those reality shows like Big Brother , Survivor, Biggest Loser, Amazing Race , and us now getting all of those dating reality shows we see now like Bachelor and Bachelorette LOL NOT!!. Who cares to see all of that junk. People want good comedy and drama tv . You don’t see that now all you get is people getting their 15 mins of fame. We need less of the Kardashians, Kendra Wilkinsons , Heidi Montag’s , Spencer Pratts , Real Housewives of New Jersey & New York, and no more Snooki’s. What does WABI have really have that draws viewers nothing.
It is basically Local Sports Programming UMAINE and High School Football, NFL Football , and News nothing else. If reality tv is what draws you in then you can have WABI and WABI-DT (THE CW) because that is what those channels have become.
The BDN offers a friendly article to a huge out-of-state conglomorate at the expense of their local competition. I don’t believe Mr. Young “bristled” but I certainly can say that I bristled reading this ugly article.WABI-TV is the best media outlet, by far, than any other in the Bangor market. Their news desk is the best in the state. Read the article again from this perspective, and it will be clear that the BDN is interested in dinging this great station, because it is a real threat to its (dwindling) advertising revenue.I picked up a hard copy of the BDN recently and found only three ads in its entire front section. Three! And they were small!You have sunk fairly low, BDN, by cowardly undermining your competitor with this slanted “news” piece.
WABI is owned by an international conglomerate with offices on FOUR continents. I bet Craig Colson is getting a chuckle today!
http://www.divcom.com/locations.htm
DivCom’s publishing operations are bigger than their TV division (two small-market stations in Maine and Florida) but no well-run business can tolerate allowing one division to subsidize the other – each has to carry its own weight.
WABI is owned by Maine’s Hildreth family and other Maine investors.
Really, BDN doing a slanted news story, no news there.
It sounds to me like WABI might be going down the drain. Assuming that the previous post indicating that more than a third of their viewers come from Direct TV.
How would you deduce that from the article?
REMOVE
REMOVE
Let’s see how many more “Likes” we could put on WLBZ 2 and WVII’s Facebook pages…Let them see we -DO- care…
Currently WLBZ 2’s page is:http://www.facebook.com/#!/WLBZ2And has 7,791 “Likes”
WVII’s Page is:http://www.facebook.com/#!/WVII7And has 1,157 “Likes”
WABI’s page is:http://www.facebook.com/#!/WABITV5And has 11,678 “Likes” (but I am about to “UnLike” their page)Just a thought on how to use (social) media to communicate -WITH- the media…
Looks like WABI got unliked by 12 people so far.
Funny how FOX, NBC and ABC were able to work out deals with Direct TV. Me thinks the problem is WABI management. By their own admission they did not even try to call Direct TV on Monday.
Funny how all the other providers, EXCEPT DirecTV, have agreed with WABI and still carry it’s programming.
I think its about time direct tv (hopfully cable companies will follow suit) stopped giving in to the high prices demanded from the stations. Our bill goes up and these overpaid companies give us crap to watch. Take Spike for instance how many times do we really wanna watch Starwars??
Are you complaining about the $5.15 ESPN charges per subscriber? WABI, even with a 300% increase, is a tiny fraction of that.
this is not the first time WABI has held up sat or cable companies for more money….. I am deleting them from my channel guide permanently. There is to much good programming to worry about that prima Donna………
I think this is “GREAT”!! Hat’s off to DTV!! This is how we stop Wall Street from making the rich richer.. Not by demonstrating but refusing to pay more money to big networks that don’t need it.
I laughed when I saw this. Channel 5 is one of the only stations I can consistently get after the digital switch. Back in the 50s we used to have TV. In the 60s living in Aroostook County, we got 3 channels and one of those was Canadian. We’re going backwards into the 21st century and thank goodness for that.
Being an aroostook co. gal I remember those days. How come theres not much more on 150 channels as there was back then lol?
I wasn’t watching tv enough to keep paying for cable, and then when the switch occurred and it was one problem after the other with reception I eventually just gave up on tv. Now, a bit of local news at 6:00 (when it comes in) and then upstairs where I can get 2 but not 5, we watch a bit of Leno before we fall asleep.
Really you had two U.S. Channels? We only had one, MPBN. The other two were ATV and CTV, both Canadian stations.
I believe one was MPBN the other WAGM
Yes, WAGM had whatever network they chose for programming, WMEM was PBS, and CHSJ in New Brunswick was the Canadian station.
They had the license for fox, abc, nbc and cbs. In the early 2000s if you got Direct Tv you couldnt get Bangors chanels because WAGM had the local rights. Problem with that was WAGM didnt show all the shows from all the four networks. So we ended up with California stations. which was great cause I could watch general hospital after work.
I’ve been in Bangor since 1970 so I had no idea. Interesting how the County always adapts to whatever comes. I miss that.
I recall hiding on the stairs late Friday night and watching my brother trying to get the softcore french shows to come in.
Our channels were MPBN, CHSJ(CBC), and WAGM. WAGM took whichever show was highest rated a time slot at night.
Beachcombers anybody?
How about the original Degrassi lol
I described ,Mr. Dressup to my wife. “Tickletrunk” and all. She said he sounded like a pervert,
Hmm, whatever happened to Casey and Finnegan anyway?
I areas where you had a snowy pic before digital can be hard to get. Do a bit a research before you buy an antenna . Those 55db rabbit ears just do not work. A decent directional out TV antenna up off the ground a bit helps a lot.
You do not need DirecTV to watch WABI and CW…just attach atteanna to TV…its FREE!
As long as you are not in the shadow of a mountain , that will work, But maine is a mountainous State.
Not for most of downeast Maine. It doesn’t work that easily.
I live 10 miles from bangor and that does not work, even tried attaching one on the roof, that did not work as well.
Strong arm shakedown tactics by some heavy hitters.
The lawyers will $ort it all out.
Ka Ching. $$$
I cant hardly get any TV at all Downeast since the “improvement”
to digital.
Except Canadian stations.
And the MPBN tower is just across town.
Cant say I miss it much.
Here we are in Rural Maine… you know us the one’s NORTH of Augusta… being screwed!!! our tax dollars go south…and now because we are not in an area that can get cable and rely on Satellite we lose local channels… can we boycot all of WABI affiliates??? they can not hold us hostage..we need to make a stand against this. I emailed both Direct TV and WABIose from Dirct tv and not WABI… so I know who cares.. so not I say WABI can request whatever…I am done with them and their affiliates until they smarten up and stop being greedy!!!!
If you are going to raise my bill for a station I could
care less about…dump them! I have enough of a variety
with Direct-TV to worry about 1 CBS channel.
The BDN offers a friendly article to a huge out-of-state conglomorate at the expense of their local competition. I don’t believe Mr. Young “bristled” but I certainly can say that I bristled reading this ugly article.
WABI-TV is the best media outlet, by far, than any other in the Bangor market. Their news desk is the best in the state. Read the article again from this perspective, and it will be clear that the BDN is interested in dinging this great station, because it is a real threat to its (dwindling) advertising revenue.
I picked up a hard copy of the BDN recently and found only three ads in its entire front section. Three! And they were small!
You have sunk fairly low, BDN, by cowardly undermining your competitor with this slanted “news” piece.
Did you read the first article that appeared to possibly slant towards wabi if any? Not that I think the bdn is picking any side, but surely you would agree the first article expressed the views of wabi. As the story unfolds, I think the truth is starting to come out imo. Hopefully they can both come to a fair agreement.
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2012/06/04/business/without-deal-bangors-wabi-leaving-directv-at-midnight/
Gots ta have my Big Bang Theory.
WABI just lost me as a viewer and just think of how many more feel the same way. I could care less now if I get that channel.
I have direct TV I do not get local stations on Direct TV . In return for a $10 a month discount. Now i guess they can not charge more for local stations but can give a discount to people who do not want locals on direct TV . I have a converter box and an outside antenna for local stations. I am very happy with my reception on locals . Sometime heavy rain or snow I lose my direct TV. A decent outside antenna (or make one) and a newer TV or converter box should do the trick in the Bangor area.
The mission statement for Diversified Communications, the parent company of WABI. Pay particular attention to the section on communication! http://www.divcom.com/mission.htm. also FYI the officers of Diversified, which it turns out per their website actually has locations all over the world, so they are hardly the David they make themselves out to be: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private.snapshot.asp?privcapId=23443252
The TV part of DivCom is very small, though, down to two small-market stations from its peak a generation ago. One of their former stations, a CBS affiliate in Wilkes-Barre-Scranton, PA, was at its strongest under Diversified; now, under Nexstar’s management it has no news department and its operations are consolidated with the NBC affiliate in town (which is owned by Nexstar.)
Don’t bite the hand that feeds. DivCom will prob suffer for this. Most people will switch their local news media outlet and watch their shows online before they will go through the hassle of switching cable or satellite providers.
I’m glad that I live in an area where I get over 30 channels with an antenna (about 22 that I’ll actually watch. I don’t have pay TV anymore, cancelled as an experiment and never had the desire to get it back.
This stinks for people in very rural areas like most of Maine where an over the air signal is just not available, or not reliable. This isn’t fair, especially for the elderly when TV is likely their biggest form of entertainment.
The ones that are going to suffer is the advertisers. Those that are on sales , go apply to another station. I would not pay to advertise on these stations waste if money.
The GM for WABI has said that if the “real figures” were out and people knew just how little money the dispute was over instead of just the increase percentage of 300%, that we would be surprised at just how small a number they are fighting over. Well, Mr Young – if it’s such a small number, is it worth losing 100,000+ viewers? Is it worth sacrificing the impact of your advertising customers hard earned dollars who now are NOT getting the exposure that they expected? Just how IS this hardline negotiating working out for you?
I was just going to say the same thing. If its a small deal, the get it over with! This is a tough economy as it is. I own a small business and let me tell you we take just about any type of work we can these days just to keep up with the bills coming in. I do know that I will not advertise with wabi with my hard earned dollars.
On a side note, divcom appears to gross about $100 million / year. Not a super high number but not a small one either.
So you’re all for WABI giving up income. Does your business have something you don’t mind losing the income from because it has such a small markup?
WHAT are you talking about? Sounds like you might either work for WABI or have ties there somehow. WABI is paid to provide a service, they are paid by their advertisers, they are paid by cable and satellite providers PER ACCOUNT in their viewing area, and they are paid another fee by the cable and satellite providers aside from the user fee. They are NOT providing that service {at this time to DirecTV subscribers}. They are doing a dis-service to the advertisers who paid to reach their viewing audience and now cannot. I’m not sure where your analogy of losing income from a small mark up figures in, but they are getting nothing now, just as their viewers on DirecTV are getting nothing. Seems to me a small percentage of something is better than nothing.
I wonder why it is all the other cable and sat providers are OK with WABI and DirecTV is not. I have DirecTV but where I am, WABI is not a local channel. Everyone is coming down on a local business in favor of a corperate giant. You accuse me of being a WABI employee. Do you sell DirecTV?
I don’t sell DirecTV or have any other ties to either side, what I do is simply look at the facts as they are portrayed, learn as much as I can about the topic and base my opinion on that. Here is what I have seen on this, please correct me if I am wrong, as no one from WABI has given any details. The contract between WABI and DTV was about to expire, the two parties enter into negotiations to renew the contract, all points are agreed upon until WABI says that they want a 300% increase in the fee paid to the station from DTV, which would put their fee far above any other station around or in a similar market and coverage area. Now this could have happened with WABI and Time Warner Cable or with Dish Network if those contracts were expiring instead. DTV, Dish, Time Warner, etc. negotiate with hundreds of stations for this same type of contract – currently the only conflict is with Diversified Communications- I found that on an industry website, I wish I could locate it now and provide the link. I am not a fighter for the corporate giant, typically I am more of the opposite, however it appears that WABI is making unreasonable demands based on the info that DirecTV has put out there and WABI has made no info available to dispute that. Just sayin’
“…which would put their fee far above any other station” You know this for a fact.
“…Now this could have happened with WABI and Time Warner Cable or with Dish Network if those contracts were expiring instead.” You know this hasn’t already happened under the same terms at DTV.
I’ll take your word for it.
The comment about their fee being higher, I know to be something stated as fact by DirecTV and have seen nothing from anyone else to dispute that. Look, I was just telling you what I had learned from postings and research that I had done, you can take it or leave it.
I DO know for a fact that this happened before with WABI and Time Warner, same tactics by WABI, blame the big guy, encourage the viewers to change to a different provider, pull the signal for a while…. It just seems to be a familiar pattern, and like someone who has had many failed relationships, WABI should maybe start to wonder, “could it possibly be me?”
WABI is fast fading from all viewers as it is. I had been watching their news cast but no one wants to do investigative reporting and we enjoy that element. Not saying any other station does any but programming on WABI leaves a lot to be desired and we usually watch Fox or ABC, these days so I don’t have to keep changing the channel. Seems no one at WABI is listening to the viewers or former viewers. I would say they have paved their own road by their in-actions.
I do like DISH because of the local channels. But, by the time you eliminate the selling channels, the religious channels, the cartoon channels, redundant sports channels, the game channels, the cooking channels and obsolete comedy channels, there really isn’t much to watch sometimes.
Someone from DISH called me the other night to see if they could give me a cheaper rate than Cable…I waited and waited…they never called me back….what’s up with that
Turn off your Tell-Lie-Vision folks…. get a life!
Two years ago I ditched Directv simply because I didn’t think I was getting my money’s worth. Went with the antenna to pick up local NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and MPBN and I get the rest of my entertainment streaming online (basic Hulu and Netflix packages, plus what available for free such as Comedy Central programs, Bravo, and others). So when I read an article like this I just have to laugh.
IT’S WAY PAST TIME FOR CONGRESS TO STEP IN A PASS A LAW THAT LETS US BUY ONLY THE CHANNELS WE WANT TO WATCH INSTEAD OF HAVING TO PAY PAKAGE PRICES FOR ALL THE CRAP PROGRAMMING CHANNELS WE SKIP OVER.
I get CBS,NBC,ABC and MPBN free with my home made antenna. They are all in HD and they don’t cost a cent to watch. http://www.tvantennaplans.com/
The antenna cost me about $5 to build using mostly materials I had around the house.
-=-=-
It’s interesting every other satellite and cable provider, EXCEPT DIRECTV, has agreed with WABI and is still carrying the stations. I guess everybody’s wrong except DirecTV. Interesting.
You could also say that DirecTV has struck a deal with all the other local stations EXCEPT WABI & the CW ! It could be that the contract for the other carriers will be expiring soon and they will be going thru this with WABI next.
Could be. Then again, maybe not.
This is so simple, it’s almost stupid. WABI wants satellite viewers to buy an over- the-air antenna. And, with that accomplished, viewers won’t need DirecTV (or DISH for that matter). With fewer people using satellite, WABI puts themselves into a better negotiating position with the satellite providers. Very clever on their part. This move will also help the other Bangor stations because people will use the antenna to watch them as well, thus eliminating the need for satellite providers. However, WABI is quite presumptuous about this. They apparently really believe that we really care. Well, we don’t! Channel 2 and Channel 7 both provide adequate news coverage and the CBS shows can be seen on the Internet. The brain trust at WABI may have out-foxed themselves on this one. It will be fun to watch, decidedly much more interesting that watching Channel 5.
WABI had the same fight with Time Warner last year. Then WABI was instructing everyone how to drop TW and get Direct TV.
Since the ad dollars aren’t coming in, these local stations want to recover lost revenue on the backs of cable and satellite subscribers.
The FCC needs to drop the local area protection that these stations have. If the Cable and Satellite CO’s were free to carry any channels they wished this foolishness would cease.
Yes that is right! I remembered a similar scenario in the not too distant past but couldn’t remember who the players were. Does anyone else see a pattern?
FYI – WABI TV5 has posted an update with additional perspective on our website here: http://www.wabi.tv/news/30739/wabi-message-to-our-directv-customers
Steve Hiltz, Program Director, WABI-TV/WABI DT2