What Channels are being Dropped by DirecTV?

You’re watching American Idol on ABC with your family and suddenly the channel goes into a blackout, leaving you stunned and upset. You’ve never faced this kind of a problem before with the nation’s #1 satellite TV provider and yet, your favorite channel disappears from the satellite feed without even a warning. You can’t help but wonder why’s DirecTV not showing ABC, which is not even a premium network like HBO Max™ for which you have to pay extra, but a channel sourced locally. Well, we have an answer for you. Before you pick up your phone angrily to give AT&T customer service a piece of your mind, how about you let us show you what channels are being dropped by DirecTV and why.

Stay tuned.

Why is DirecTV Getting Rid of Channels?

As mentioned before, DirecTV is a satellite TV service, which leverages communications satellites in outer space to beam forth channel programming to your home. Being a satellite carrier, it delivers the top local, national and international networks to its subscribers all over the nation. For this, the provider has to pay a certain carriage fee. Now, most TV channel owners keep their fee under a bearable threshold, but when a station owner raises that fee unceremoniously, that’s when the real dispute begins. Sometimes, in the flow of that dispute, network owners temporarily sever their contract with DirecTV, cutting off the channel feed to your neighborhood. This is why you face a channel blackout.

At the dawn of this year, somewhere around February, a lot of complaints were heard in regards to local channels not showing up on DirecTV. We looked into it, and this is what happened. Cox Media Group and its owner, Apollo Global Management, went into a fee fight with AT&T and its subsidiary, DirecTV. Consequently, Cox Media stations pulled back the local TV channels from the homes of DirecTV subscribers, and the provider wasn’t able to do anything about it. Why? Because the owner group had exclusive control over the local stations and the residential areas that would be eligible to receive NBC on DirecTV or other channels through the satellite carrier.

Unless a carriage agreement is signed between the two parties, such disputes linger on and on. Who suffers in between? The consumers who just want to watch local TV through DirecTV and have to wait on channel restoration, while paying for their package in full.

What Stations is DirecTV Dropping?

Here’s a list of the channels dropped by DirecTV:

What Can You Do About It?

A local channel may disappear from your DirecTV lineup because the channel owner is asking for an unreasonable amount of money from the satellite carrier to renew the carriage contract. It’s not just DirecTV, almost all cable and satellite providers have to face such a problem and encounter threats from network owners. When such a blackout happens, DirecTV recommends you to not panic and do the following:

1. Head to https://www.att.com/tvpromise/, enter your zip code in the search tool, and get instant updates about possible channel blackouts in your area.
2. If you see missing channels in your neighborhood, patiently wait for DirecTV to restore them, because the provider will try its best to bring back your favorite local programming any which way.
3. In the meantime, learn how to keep up with missing shows or channels by clicking here.

To Sum Up

Channel blackouts happen because of carriage conflicts between channel owners and TV carriers. If you’re wondering why is DirecTV getting rid of local channels, then we hope that this post has answered your question. Still, if you’re worried, call (866) 996-2797 to speak directly with a DirecTV customer service representative and hear out the issue in detail.