Agreement expired Dec. 31

AT&T and Hearst Television extended their retransmission consent fee negotiation until 5 p.m. Friday, keeping the stations available to DirecTV subscribers for at least a little while longer.

Their agreement expired on Dec. 31 at midnight but the two sides agreed to an extension as talks continued.

UPDATE: The two sides have agreed to talk into the evening.

Hearst stations announced the latest extension on their websites.

According to a statement on the website of WCVB in Boston, the station's signal would only be removed from DirecTV if negotiations are unsuccessful.

“Hearst has a long history of successfully concluding carriage agreements with cable companies and other satellite distributors with no disruption of service to subscribers,” the website said. “While we hope to conclude our negotiations before January 3rd, so as not to deprive any of our respective viewers and customers of our programming, we want to advise our viewers and customers that the possibility of non-renewal of our current agreement exists.”