DIRECTV's Football Fans In Miami Catch a Break

Washington, D.C. (January 20, 2012) -- Sunbeam has agreed to let DIRECTV air this Sunday's NFL Championship Game to its Miami viewers while negotiations for a new agreement to carry the local channel there continue. The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel estimates that as many as 270,000 DIRECTV subscribers will now be able to see the game.

For the past week, Sunbeam has denied the satcaster's Miami subscribers access to their local Fox station and Boston viewers access to their NBC and CW stations. The two sides have been unable to reach a new programming pact since the old pact expired last Friday at midnight.

The outage has been especially thorny for Sunbeam and DIRECTV with football fans in Miami upset about losing Fox's coverage of the NFL playoffs last weekend. Boston viewers were also angry about losing NBC's broadcast of the Golden Globes awards last Sunday night.

But WSVN-TV, the Miami Fox affiliate owned by Sunbeam, said last night that it would allow DIRECTV to air Sunday's title game between the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers. However, if a new agreement is not reached by game's end, the screen will go back to black immediately after the game is over.

"WSVN is still negotiating with DIRECTV, but we care about our viewers and we want them to be able to watch this game," the station said in a statement.

DIRECTV claims that Sunbeam is asking for a 300 percent increase in carriage fees. DIRECTV also said Sunbeam refused its request to continue carrying the channels while negotiations continued.

However, Sunbeam's local stations in Boston and Miami said they are only asking for "fair value" for DIRECTV to carry their signals.

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