Mike Snider

USA TODAY

Nearly 17 million Charter Communications pay-TV customers nationwide — and about 1 million in New York — could lose NBCUniversal networks in a carriage dispute between the companies.

Should the pay-TV provider and programmer not reach an agreement by Sunday, some Charter customers could miss a crucial Sunday Night Football game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions — the winner earns the NFC North crown — and possibly two outdoor hockey games, Sunday's Centennial Classic between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings and Winter Classic featuring the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks on Monday, as well as Monday's Tournament of Roses Parade.

The blackout could result in a dropping of NBCUniversal networks such as Bravo and USA for Charter's 16.9 million Spectrum pay-TV subscribers nationwide. And those in cities such as New York, L.A., and Dallas-Fort Worth, where NBC owns the local station, customers would also lose the flagship NBC broadcast. The areas around Green Bay and Detroit would not lose their NBC channel, as NBC does not own stations in those markets.

The two companies are at an impasse, the programmer says.

"NBCUniversal values its partnership with Charter Spectrum, our third largest distributor," the company said in a statement. "Charter Spectrum has been unyielding in its demand for terms superior to those agreed to by the rest of the industry, including larger distributors. Given this position, we feel the responsibility to inform viewers that Charter Spectrum may drop NBCUniversal’s networks at the end of the year, including NBC, Telemundo, USA, Bravo and hit shows including the #1 show on TV — Sunday Night Football, WWE, the Golden Globes, This Is Us and more.”



Stamford, Conn.-based Charter declined comment, other than to note that it would be the programmer not making its content available that leads to a blackout.

Charter acquired New York-headquartered Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks earlier this year for a combined $65.5 billion (excluding debt) to become the second-largest cable TV and Internet provider with a total of 24.5 million residential customers (16.9 million pay-TV customers). Comcast, the largest provider at nearly 29 million, had tried to acquire TWC, but gave up under regulators' scrutiny.

The NBCUniversal-Charter carriage dispute is the largest, but not the only one being debated. DirecTV is negotiating retransmission deals with Hearst Television, which owns 30 TV stations, and Cox Media, with 15 stations. Meanwhile, Dish Network is negotiating with Griffin Communications to keep two Oklahoma stations on its system.

Carriage disputes are a perennial occurrence, says TVPredictions.com publisher and president Phil Swann. "Deals are made with multi-year terms and they end at year's end," he said. "More times than not, they get settled before blackout. But you never know, which causes viewer anxiety."

NBCUniversal has created a DeliverMyShows.com site to inform subscribers about the situation. "NBCUniversal has a strong record of completing these deals without interruption," it says on the site. "We don’t like involving viewers in this process, but we are concerned that Spectrum is not interested in carrying our networks and feel we have a responsibility to inform viewers if NBCUniversal programming will be dropped."

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.