NBC News in Pittsburgh, but many may not see it
December 16, 2025The good news is NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas will broadcast from Pittsburgh tonight as part of their “Reporting for America” campaign. (I imagine it will include Llamas cutting promos with WPXI anchors Gordon Loesch and Lisa Sylvester.) The bad news is Verizon Fios customers won’t be seeing the broadcast on their TV unless they have an antenna or alternate means to view WPXI (11). Cox Media Group and Verizon are at odds about retransmission costs again. The most recent agreement expired Monday with no resolution for renewal causing Verizon to drop all Cox properties from their lineup. Both parties are still negotiating ca new contract while alerting the viewers on screen that the other guy is wrong and wants to pay too little, or is charging way too much depending on who is making the claim. There is no timeline for resolution. Sometimes these disputes are resolved quickly while others have lasted weeks, even months.
I’m not saying who’s right or wrong in these rights payment issues, but inevitably these interruptions will only drive customers away from traditional cable (& maybe streaming services that provide local coverage). Maybe live and local TV will trend back to rabbit ears, or halos depending on your antenna of choice. Eventually the OTA networks will likely find a way to (profitably) cut out the affiliates.
Kinda hard to let Fios/Verizon customers know NOW that there’s a problem except for the full-screen message that appears where WPXI is on your Fios cable. We aren’t seeing WPXI’s “side” of the story. Luckily, I do have at least one tv on an antenna!