Colorado RSN Altitude black out on Dish
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 30 August 2019

US regional sports network Altitude Sports and Entertainment, which offers coverage of sports teams in the state of Colorado, has gone dark on the Dish Network.

Altitude carries games from the NHL Colorado Avalanche, the NBA Denver Nuggets, Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids, the National Lacrosse League’s Colorado Mammoth and college sports from the University of Denver.

A carriage deal between Altitude and Dish expired at midnight on 29 August and the blackout affected Dish customers in nine states -- Colorado, Utah, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming.

For its part, Dish said that Altitude was demanding a guaranteed minimum of subscribers, and asking too much in affiliate fees. “This comes down to Altitude demanding payment on a guaranteed minimum number of customers,” said *Dish senior vice president of programming Andy LeCuyer. “We’re no longer going to support the broken regional sports TV business model that seeks to have the majority of pay-TV customers pay for the few who watch.”

Altitude hit back, saying that Dish and other pay-TV carriers “want to play by their own rules and are making unrealistic demands... Their actions will affect hundreds of thousands of regional sports fans and negatively impact hundreds of local businesses that continue to support their home teams.”

The Fox RSNs went dark on the satellite’s airwaves in July; and Dish narrowly missed losing FX, FXX, FXM, National Geographic and National Geographic WILD after Disney granted a last-minute extension this week