Dish Network drops 5 La. TV stations

ALEXANDRIA — Dish Network has stopped carrying five Louisiana television stations.

Signals were cut just after 5 p.m. Wednesday, along with stations elsewhere owned by Dallas-based Hoak Media.

Hoak owns KALB, the NBC affiliate in Alexandria and NALB, a digital subchannel of KALB that carries CBS. It also owns KNOE, Monroe’s CBS affiliate, and NNOE, a digital subchannel of KNOE that carries CW programming. It operates, but does not own, KAQY, Monroe’s ABC affiliate.

Dish says Hoak wanted a 200 percent increase in charges to air broadcasts and demanded that Dish drop a commercial-skipping feature of its digital recorders known as AutoHop.

Rich Adams, Hoak Media’s chief operating officer, said Dish’s account of the dispute is “a lie.”

Adams said nationwide, 450,000 Dish subscribers lost Hoak stations.