Did Uncle Perry FAFO?

TV viewership continues to decline, and one of the few things that draws viewers to local stations is live sports.

And by sports, we mainly mean NFL football.

With the NFL season right around the corner, Nexstar is losing its CBS affiliation in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jackson, Mississippi; Bismarck, North Dakota; Birmingham, Alabama; Greenville, South Carolina; and Rapid City, South Dakota. In 4 of those markets, the CBS affiliation will be going to the Hearst station.

FTVLive was the FIRST to report that Nexstar and CBS were looking to divorce from one another.

Sources tell FTVLive that Nexstar was looking to reduce the reverse compensation that the stations pay to the network to carry their programming. When Nexstar started to balk at the reverse comp, CBS started looking for stations to carry their signal. A source tells FTVLive that Nexstar called CBS’s bluff, and the network was holding a full house.

Now, those former CBS affiliates will not have NFL football to sell this fall, and that alone will cost the Nexstar stations big bucks.

While viewers in those markets will no longer be able to watch NFL football on the Nexstar stations, they will be able to watch Superman and Lois on The CW.

That should make it all better…right?