Altice, Nexstar strike deal; WPIX/11 restored to Optimum cable TV subscribers

The WPIX/11 offices on East 42st Street in Manhattan. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
Altice reached a deal with WPIX/11 owner Nexstar, restoring the station on the television sets of Optimum cable subscribers, according to a joint announcement from the two companies released Saturday evening.
Altice had pulled all Nexstar programming, including New York's WPIX/11, from its Optimum service in the New York area on Jan. 10.
Dozens of other stations owned by Nexstar in 21 states were also reinstated to about 2 million subscribers.
The details of the agreement were not released.
Altice also pulled MSG Networks, whose programming includes Islanders, Rangers, Devils and Knicks games, from Optimum on New Year's Day in a carriage fee dispute that is still unresolved.
Altice and Nexstar in a news release Saturday said, “Together, Nexstar and Optimum thank our customers and viewers for their patience as we partnered on the best deal for them.”
Last week, the stations went black on Optimum as the negotiations seemed to be at an impasse.
Altice accused Nexstar “of anti-consumer negotiation tactic — tying local channels to less popular ones — requiring Optimum and its customers to pay for channels like NewsNation, which has essentially no viewership, in order to continue carrying Nexstar broadcast stations in various markets across the country."
Nexstar had been less specific about why they had rejected Altice's previous offers, calling their rival's demands "unreasonable and unprecedented."
Michael Biard, Nexstar's CEO, told Variety magazine, "We understand the difficulty of Altice’s financial situation, burdened as it is by billions in debt, but the solution isn’t to force Optimum subscribers to continually pay more while getting less."
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