Nexstar's Comcast Suit Follows Comcast Ownership Cap Petition
Comcast's retransmission of WPIX New York is governed by an agreement with Nexstar, but the cable operator is ignoring the agreement to the tune of millions of dollars of unpaid retransmission consent fees, the broadcaster said in a complaint Tuesday…
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in New York State Supreme Court in New York County. Nexstar said it sold WPIX in 2020 to Mission Broadcasting, and it and Mission have a local marketing agreement with Nexstar providing programming and other support services. It said Comcast had no objection there. When Mission told Comcast the retrans agreement between the two didn't apply to WPIX, Comcast complained to the FCC about the LMA terms. Comcast petitioned the FCC earlier this month for a declaratory ruling that Nexstar is attributed with WPIX and that its divestiture of the station as part of Nexstar buying Tribune to stay under the national ownership cap is "a sham." Comcast said it has a retrans agreement with WPIX owner Mission, yet Nexstar asserted retrans consent and other rights over WPIX. It suggested possible remedies such as ordering a rewrite of the LMA. In a statement Wednesday, Comcast said the Nexstar complaint "is just an attempt to distract from the important issues that we have brought to the FCC’s attention, including that Nexstar’s control and influence of WPIX violates the national ownership cap and the FCC’s merger conditions on its acquisition of Tribune Media.”