(AP) – Some DirecTV customers saw blacked-out channels on Thursday where they would usually see local news.
DirecTV and its owner AT&T failed to reach a new deal with telecom company Nexstar, and Nexstar says 120 channels across 97 markets in the U.S. fell blank on Thursday. Those included Peoria-Bloomington stations WMBD and WYZZ. Instead of showing local news affiliates such as ABC, NBC and FOX, customers saw only a message from DirecTV stating that Nexstar had removed the channel.
Both companies are pointing blame at the other for the blackout.
AT&T says it offered Nexstar more money to keep the channels available. Nexstar says it offered AT&T an extension to keep the channels up while negotiations continued, but AT&T dropped the channels.
Many people took to Twitter on the holiday to demand the channels be restored.