Deal ends brief blackout

Tegna and Dish Network said they reached a multi-year carriage agreement just hours after Tegna’s stations went dark to Dish subscribers Saturday morning.

The companies said that the stations’ signals will be restored to the Dish lineup immediately

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Related: Dispute with Dish Network Blacks Out Tegna Stations

Earlier this morning both side accused the other of causing the blackout.

“Tegna refused Dish's offer to extend the contract, instead choosing to black out its stations on the eve of college football's conference championships and during the homestretch for the NFL season. It couldn't be more obvious that Tegna is using its own viewers as leverage as it demands nearly double the monthly rates, even as ratings on broadcast TV are down double digits," said Andy LeCuyer, Dish senior VP of programming.

“Tegna has worked hard over the course of months to reach a fair, market-based carriage agreement with Dish, something we have successfully done with hundreds of cable and satellite providers across the country with no disruption of service. It is disappointing that we have been unable to reach such an agreement with Dish to support our ability to bring viewers high-quality news, sports, weather and entertainment programming,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

Dish has been involved in a larger number of carriage dispute than other distributors.

HBO and Univision are currently unavailable to Dish subscribers. 

In the third quarter, Dish reported it had 12.656 million subscribers between its satellite service and its streaming service Sling, down from 12.997 million in the second quarter and 4% from 13.204 million a year ago.

Revenues fell 5% to $3.4 billion.