We regret to inform our OneNet TV customers that we have been unable to reach a retransmission agreement with Nexstar Media Group due to Nexstar’s excessive programming cost increase demands. We have been negotiating for the past several weeks, and Nexstar, one of the largest media station owners in the United States, continues to demand large percentage increases every year, huge financial cost increases that we would have to pass on to our customers with much higher programming surcharges. Because of this, we are forced to drop Nexstar-owned WBOY, WDCW, WDVM, NewsNation, and Antenna TV from our channel lineup effective November 1, 2021. We will continue to communicate with Nexstar in the hope of reaching an agreement that will allow us to resume this programming, but we always will keep the financial burden to our customers first and foremost in our negotiations.
Regarding WBOY, we strived when we launched OneNet to offer West Virginia programming. At the time, Nexstar did not own WBOY. Unfortunately, federal regulations say that Clarksburg-based WBOY is considered “out of market” for Hardy County, even though we are in West Virginia, and we are no longer allowed to carry it.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we strongly feel it is in the best interests of ALL of our customers (who would all be affected by this cost increase) to refuse to give in to the ever-increasing price demands from major media content providers such as Nexstar. We want to provide the best TV product that we can, but we also have to consider the financial strain on Hardy Telecommunications and our customers now and in the future.
Based on the latest demand from Nexstar, our costs to provide these channels would jump dramatically each of the next three years, so that a significant portion of your OneNet TV bill would go solely to pay for these Nexstar-owned channels. That doesn’t even take into consideration the increases we must pay to other provider companies to maintain broadcast rights to other channels in our lineup, even as those providers pull more and more programming from their regular stations and make it available only on streaming platforms not available for broadcast TV. Hardy OneNet already charges our customers less for programming fees than what we pay content providers for those retransmission rights, meaning Hardy loses money on that portion of the business. Financially, Hardy is able to continue to provide TV only because other ancillary services, such as DVR, make up that difference.
Should our continued attempts to achieve a fair and reasonable agreement fail to yield results and allow us to resume the broadcast of Nexstar-owned stations, we will evaluate our programming surcharge in relation to the 2022 increases we must pay to other providers and adjust it accordingly. We will update you if anything changes.