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NEW YORK — Ending a dispute that caused 27 local television stations in 17 cities to go dark for eight days, Dish Network and television station owner Lin TV Corp. agreed to contract terms Sunday.
Terms of the agreement were not released, and neither side has said how many viewers were affected.
The two sides failed to agree before a March 5 deadline. Since then, Dish Network subscribers in 17 cities including Indianapolis, Providence, R.I., and Buffalo, N.Y., were no longer able to watch local affiliates of networks such as CBS, Fox, NBC, ABC and the CW.
Both companies had blamed each other for pulling the broadcast signals.
Disputes over the fees cable and satellite providers pay to broadcast stations to include their signals in their channel lineups are becoming increasingly common.
In October, a breakdown in negotiations between Cablevision Systems Corp. and News Corp.'s Fox network left 3 million Cablevision subscribers in the New York area without Fox programming for 15 days — including through two World Series games — after the broadcaster pulled its signal.
In January, Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcast group came to terms on an agreement just hours before a midnight deadline that would have cut local service to 4 million subscribers in places like Buffalo, San Antonio and Greensboro, N.C.
Lin is based in Providence. Dish Network Corp. is headquartered in Englewood,Colo.
