BONTEN DISH RETRANS

Dear Northern California Dish Customers,

Dish Network has chosen not to provide the KRCR and FOX 20 signals and there has been misleading information sent to you about why they have made this choice. It is important to provide you with the facts about Bonten Media’s negotiations with Dish.

Despite what Dish has said, we are asking for only three pennies a day for each customer. Part of your current Dish Network bill already contains a charge for local channels that is dramatically higher than what we are asking. We are only asking Dish to reimburse us at a rate similar to what other cable and satellite companies pay for our programming.

Fair compensation from cable and satellite providers is crucial to the survival of local broadcasters everywhere. Dish is a multi-billion dollar company, who is reselling our product to you. We are asking that they reimburse us fairly for our product.

KRCR, ABC and KCVU FOX 20 have been a part of the community for decades. We live here and work here just like you. Like every small business, we must compete with mega-corporations that seek to intimidate us so they can continue to grow their profit margins. We sincerely apologize that the loss of our signals has caused so much frustration in the community. We know you value our programming and local news coverage and appreciate the overwhelming support we have received from you. We thank you so much for standing by your local stations, and we are working hard to resolve this issue fairly.

Please visit our website, or join the conversation on Facebook. We are making every effort to respond to each customer who contacts us. Our website also includes information on how you can switch to DirecTV or your local cable company.

Sincerely,

Andrew Stewart
Vice President and General Manager of Bonten California