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McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Dish and Gannett say they have reached an agreement in a fee dispute that had threatened to leave more than 2 million Dish subscribers in 19 cities -including Buffalo -- without access to local television stations owned by Gannett.
The companies said Monday that they reached a long-term agreement but didn’t give further details.
Dish Network Corp. had claimed that Gannett Co. was asking for a 300 percent increase in fees for the right to carry 22 Gannett stations affiliated with NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. Gannett has said it was seeking a fair deal in line with market rates.
The two sides are also fighting over Dish’s new digital video recorder, which allows customers to automatically skip commercials from the previous night’s prime-time broadcasts.
Locally the dispute would have removed WGRZ Channel 2 programming from the Dish Network had the two sides not agreed long term, or adopted a stop gap extension that had been in effect