Dish Network/CBS Dispute Leaves Millions Without Thanksgiving NFL

LOS ANGELES, CA — Millions of Dish Network subscribers lost access to CBS television Tuesday, and now they face the specter of Thanksgiving without NFL football. The blackout affects customers in 18 cities , including Los Angeles.

The outage stems from contentious fee dispute between satellite TV provider Dish Network and CBS Corp., which owns the television stations. In addition to the local stations, customers also lose three CBS cable channels, including CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel and Pop. Using its Thanksgiving NFL rights as leverage, CBS fired the first shot.

"Now, Dish subscribers are in jeopardy of being without CBS over the Thanksgiving holiday, which would mean they would miss CBS Sports, NFL and SEC football coverage beginning Thursday," CBS said in a statement.

CBS is set to broadcast the NFL matchup between the Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving

Dish is fighting back, however. The provider is offering to install an over-the-air antenna for most customers affected by the outage so they could continue to receive CBS. Dish also promised to reduce subscribers bills by $10 per month if they agreed to drop the local TV stations from their lineup, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Dish blamed the dispute on CBS's demands for higher retransmission and cable affiliate fees even as viewership has declined. Such higher broadcast fees are contributing to the steady increases in pay-TV bills. Dish has been struggling to contain programming costs as it loses customers, according to The Times.

Dish of Englewood, Colorado, noted that CBS has boasted on its earnings calls with Wall Street analysts that it will generate $2.5 billion a year in retransmission fees for its stations by 2020, up from $250 million a year in 2012, The Times reported.

Customers in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Denver and other markets also were also hit by the blackout.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)