Dish Network Drops AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh PA

01 October, 2021

9:15 AM

Description

PITTSBURGH, PA — Dish has dropped AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh programming, causing headaches for customers of the satellite TV network who like watching the Pirates and Penguins. The move came abruptly Thursday for fans watching the Pirates-Cubs game. In a post on its website, AT&T SportsNet said that although it was disappointed by the decision to drop all of its local sports networks, it was not surprised. "Dish Network does not carry any regional sports network except NESN (Red Sox and Bruins), which is the only RSN left on Dish Network. "During our renewal conversations, we proposed a very favorable deal for Dish that other large distributors have accepted. Dish Network was only willing to engage on very non-standard terms to continue distributing the networks. No other RSN in the country has accepted the terms Dish proposed to us." Brian Nevlon, Dish TV group president, said AT&T SportsNet was demanding rates that would be passed on to nearly all of its customers when only a small number of them watch the network. He said Dish proposed making the station available on a subscription basis similar to premium channels such as HBO and Showtime. "With this updated model, no customer would be forced to pay for content they don't watch, and the regional sports networks would determine the price customers would pay for their channels," Nevlon told CordCuttersNews.com. AT&T SportsNet said the channel remains available through most major television providers and can be streamed via DIRECTV Stream and fuboTV. Be the first to know what's happening in your community and region. With a free Patch subscription, you'll always be up to date on local and state news: https://patch.com/subscribe.