A business dispute between Little Rock television station KATV-ABC and Mountain Home cable TV provider Suddenlink has left Twin Lakes Area residents stuck in the middle.
For the past several weeks, a crawl has appeared across the top of some KATV broadcasts warning that the station could be removed from the Suddenlink lineup on Monday. As of midday Monday, KATV’s signal remained on Suddenlink, but the crawl warning of KATV’s imminent removal continued.
The crawl seen on KATV encourages viewers to contact Suddenlink at (844) 874-7588 and request it keep KATV as part of its lineup. The crawl also suggests viewers use a digital antenna or switch to another provider to continue receiving the Little Rock station’s broadcast signal.
Cable television providers enter into contracts with television programmers and pay them monthly fees to carry their stations and networks on that cable service. Often those contracts are negotiated and renewed without any fanfare or disruption.
Negotiations between Suddenlink and KATV on renewing their broadcast contract appear to be at an impasse, with the television station asking for higher fees and the cable provider unwilling to meet that demand.
In such instances, it is not unusual for the programmer to threaten to blackout its signal to leverage a more favorable broadcast contract from cable systems. According to the American Television Alliance, there were 230 blackouts in 2019, up from the previous record mark of 213 in 2017.
In addition to Mountain Home, Suddenlink also provides cable television services in Gassville, Bull Shoals, Lakeview, Midway and Flippin.
KATV is the lone remaining Arkansas station offered in Suddenlink’s cable lineup for the Twin Lakes Area. In the spring of 2016, the cable provider dropped KARK-NBC and KTHV-CBS from its lineup, citing cost-cutting measures.
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