Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens will play for the AFC North title in Week 18 on Sunday Night Football, but some Steelers fans in the Pittsburgh area may be blacked out when they try to watch the game on television.
The Steelers and Ravens will kick off at 8:20 p.m. on Sunday, with WPXI providing local coverage of the game to those in the Pittsburgh area. But thanks to a retransmission dispute between Verizon and station owner Cox Media Group, WPXI has been unavailable to Verizon Fios customers for the last few weeks.
The agreement between Cox and Verizon expired earlier in December, and Verizon blacked out the local channel for its customers in response.
“WPXI-TV is proud of our commitment to investing in high-quality local news and investigative journalism. The latest actions of Verizon/Fios threaten those investments and hurt consumers who rely on us for local news, weather, and a robust slate of sports and other popular entertainment programming,” WPXI general manager Kevin Hayes said in a statement posted to the station’s website. “Verizon/Fios should stop holding its own customers hostage in its attempts to harm local journalism and community service, all while it tries to get even larger at the expense of our loyal viewers.”
The dispute also impacts Cox-owned WXFT, the FOX affiliate in Boston, and caused New England Patriots fans to miss their team’s game against the New York Jets on Sunday.
“While we are committed to reaching a new agreement that is fair and prevents our customers’ bills from increasing unreasonably, Cox is more focused on their own financial gain at the expense of the viewing public,” a Verizon Fios spokesperson told the Boston Herald. “Despite our exhaustive efforts, they continue to demand rate increases and other terms that are neither reasonable nor fair to the families we serve.”
WPXI continues to be available to all other cable, satellite and streaming television services, as well as over the air on Channel 11.
Disclosure: Steelers Now has a content sharing agreement with WPXI.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: TV Contract Dispute Could Cause Some Steelers Fans to Miss Out on Ravens Game
