KFVS12 and Dish Network reach agreement

Raycom Media and Dish Network reached a retransmission agreement Friday, nine days after KFVS12 and its sister network, The Heartland's CW (WQWQ), went black for Dish customers, according to a news release from Dish Network.

KFVS12 general manager Tim Ingram said a verbal agreement between the two companies was reached Friday afternoon and officially announced about 9:30 p.m.

Though the network is happy an agreement was reached after months of negotiation for the sake of Dish customers, Ingram said, the relationship between the two companies is contentious.

"We're very happy. I hate to use the word thrilled," Ingram said. "Things have become more difficult, and will probably will be more difficult moving forward."

Terms of the agreement reached between Dish and Raycom were not disclosed, the release said.

Ingram could not give details of the agreement, as the negotiations were discussed and a nondisclosure agreement was made at the corporate level.

He said there was not a day during the disruption that KFVS12 was not working to reach an agreement with Dish.

Dish Network corporate communications representative John Hall referred questions to the news release.

Dish customers stopped receiving programming from KFVS12 and WQWQ on Aug. 1 after the two companies had negotiated for six months and failed to agree on a retransmission agreement.

In a news release sent Aug. 1 from Dish, director of programming Sruta Vootukuru said: "We are ready to listen to a fair proposal from Raycom to bring this impasse to a swift end. Unfortunately, the broadcaster has not been willing to pursue an agreement that would have avoided this disruption of service to our customers and Raycom viewers."

In a KFVS12 news segment that aired July 30, Ingram said: "We were very assertive in getting back to them quickly. We wanted to make sure that we were the 'good guy' in the negotiations. They've not been that way."

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