Today all DIRECTV NOW customers lost their CBS locals. If you have DIRECTV you only lost CBS if it is a CBS owned and operated CBS affiliate but all DIRECTV NOW customers lost CBS owned locals. To make up for this loss to DIRECTV NOW customers AT&T is offering $5 or $10 credits if you lost your CBS affiliate.
We are not sure how AT&T is deciding who gets the $5 or $10 credit as it seems to be almost at random. To get the credit you need to ask DIRECTV NOW’s chat agents for a credit because of CBS leaving your package. Our readers are reporting that they are getting a one time $5 or $10 off their bill to make up for the loss.
The reason DIRECTV NOW customers have lost all CBS locals is that AT&T has a deal to allow streaming of CBS locals on DIRECTV NOW through CBS. This deal has now expired and has resulted in all CBS locals being removed from DIRECTV NOW. CBS affiliates had agreed to let CBS negotiate with streaming services on their behalf sometime ago. So this means when CBS owned and operated locals go dark on DIRECTV all CBS locals go dark on DIRECTV NOW.
AT&T sent Cord Cutters News this statement about the blackout: “CBS has put our customers into the middle of its negotiations by pulling its local CBS stations in 14 cities. We were willing to continue to negotiate and also offered to pay CBS an unprecedented rate increase. That increase would present CBS the highest fee we currently pay to any major broadcast network group, despite the fact that CBS stations are available free over the air.”
Did you get a credit from AT&T for the CBS outage? Leave us a comment and let us know what you got.
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