KJCT Spent 52 Days Off DISH in Gray’s First Long Fight

DISH Network pulled KJCT News 8 off Grand Junction satellite boxes on March 10, 2026, and left it off for 52 days.

Gray Media had never run an extended station blackout. CW 13 and Ion vanished the same night, and a multi-year deal on May 1 put the signals back.

KJCT, CW 13 and Ion Went Dark on March 10

KJCT told DISH customers they had lost News 8, CW 13 and Ion on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, after a renewal deal failed. The station asked viewers to call DISH at 800-333-3474 and request the channels back.

The Grand Junction ABC station did not go off the air. It went off one satellite service. Cable, DIRECTV, an antenna, and live TV apps still had a path to the newscasts.

KJCT also said DISH has often disrupted access to local television stations in recent years. That line matched a longer Gray Media statement that went to sister stations the same week. Gray framed the dropout as a first for the company and blamed DISH’s bargaining style, not a simple missed deadline.

“For the first time in its history, Gray Media’s television stations have been dropped by Dish Network, a serial instigator of disputes that have removed thousands of broadcast and cable channels from their paying customers over the years,” Gray said.

Sister Gray stations pointed viewers to a campaign asking DISH customers to call while KJCT published the 800 number. The ask was the same in every market. Pressure DISH, and keep watching somewhere else until the contract moved.

The Blackout Hit 226 Stations Across 113 Markets

Grand Junction was one corner of a national cutoff. DISH said that after Gray Media’s decision to black out its local stations, 226 channels in 113 markets were unavailable. Large Gray markets including Atlanta, Phoenix and Cleveland went dark the same night as KJCT.

The missing list ran across ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, The CW, MyNetworkTV, Telemundo and other Gray-owned channels. DISH is a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar. It still sells satellite DISH TV alongside the Sling stream, and the March dropout hit the satellite lineup.

THE GRAY-DISH BLACKOUT IN FIGURES

• Stations dark: DISH lost 226 Gray channels in 113 markets on March 10, 2026.
• Local trio in Grand Junction: KJCT News 8, CW 13 and Ion left DISH together.
• DISH’s size, per Gray: Gray said DISH had fallen from 14 million subscribers in 2014 to 5 million.
• Gray’s Q1 hit: Net retransmission revenue was down $4 million from the year-ago quarter, with April still fully dark.

Kevin Covell, senior vice president of DISH Video Services, put the blame on Gray’s rates. DISH said it had offered a fair deal and would restore the channels if Gray came back to market terms.

It is deeply disappointing that Gray Media is using its viewers as bargaining chips. We offered a fair agreement to keep these stations on the air, but Gray Media walked away. Gray Media chose to black out their own viewers, rather than reasonably negotiate, in an attempt to extract significantly higher fees.

Kevin Covell, Senior Vice President, DISH Video Services, March 2026 statement

Gray told a different story about why the talks died. The fee fight was real, but Gray said DISH had added a contract demand that no station group had been asked to swallow.

A Long DISH Record of Station Dropouts

Gray’s March statement did not treat the KJCT cutoff as a one-off. It published a run of DISH carriage fights stretching back to 2018, and it called DISH a repeat dropout. DISH did not argue that those older fights never happened. It argued that this one was about Gray’s price.

DISH FIGHTS GRAY FLAGGED IN MARCH

The same Gray list also named Cox Media Group twice, in July 2020 and November 2022, plus Standard Media, Block Communications, Capitol Broadcasting, Mission Broadcasting, White Knight Broadcasting and Zolo Broadcasting in July 2024. Gray’s point was habit. DISH has pulled locals before, and it pulled them again on March 10.

That history is why a small-market ABC affiliate can vanish overnight. Satellite companies that want satellite carriage of local stations still need a retransmission deal to resell those signals. When the deal dies, the over-the-air transmitter keeps humming and the satellite box goes blank.

Gray Said the Extra Clause Had No Precedent

Gray did not describe a routine bump in the rate card. It said DISH’s new demand had no precedent, clashed with marketplace conditions, and broke DISH’s federal duty to negotiate retransmission in good faith. Gray said it was ready to finish a deal without that extra provision.

DISH said Gray introduced late conditions involving stations it did not yet own, then demanded fee increases that would show up on monthly bills. Both companies claimed the other walked away in the final hours before the old contract expired.

WHERE DISH AND GRAY SPLIT

• DISH’s account: Gray wanted rate increases that would raise bills and then blacked out its own viewers after DISH refused.
• Gray’s account: DISH added a contract demand with no precedent and failed to negotiate retransmission in good faith.

Neither company published the clause. Neither published the new rate. In April, Gray filed an FCC complaint and a New York federal lawsuit tied to the dispute, then dropped both after the May deal. The public file still does not show what word in the contract was worth 52 days of dark locals.

How Western Slope Homes Watched Without DISH

KJCT kept broadcasting. DISH just stopped paying to pass the signal through. For anyone who already had an antenna on the roof, the station never left. For anyone locked to a DISH box, local news, weather and ABC shows disappeared until May 1.

The station’s own workaround list was simple, and it did not depend on DISH blinking first.

WAYS TO WATCH KJCT WITHOUT DISH

• Free antenna: KJCT said News 8 stays available over the air with no monthly fee.
• Station apps: Free KJCT News 8 apps on Android, Roku, Fire and Apple TV, found by searching the station name.
• Live TV bundles: YouTube TV, Hulu Live and Fubo still carried the station during the satellite outage.
• Other pay TV: DIRECTV and local cable remained on KJCT’s list of working providers.

That split is the part of a retransmission fight that national statements skip. A DISH home in Grand Junction can swap to an antenna if the signal is clean. It can also pay a second bill for a live TV app. It cannot make two public companies publish a contract clause.

DISH’s own support replies after the restore treated May 1 as the turn date. Before that, the satellite boxes stayed empty of KJCT, CW 13 and Ion even as the transmitter on the Western Slope kept running.

A Multi-Year Deal Put KJCT Back on May 1

DISH announced on Friday, May 1, 2026, that it had a new carriage deal with Gray Media, restoring 226 local channels in 113 markets. Covell thanked customers for their patience and called it a long-term agreement that benefited all parties.

Gray stations told viewers the signal would return over the next couple of hours. DISH emailed subscribers the same night, said the local channels were restored, and wrote, “We sincerely apologize for any interruption or frustration this may have caused.”

THE 52 DAYS

1. March 10, 2026: DISH drops KJCT, CW 13, Ion and the rest of Gray’s DISH lineup after the renewal fails.
2. April 2026: Gray files an FCC complaint and a New York federal lawsuit tied to the fight.
3. May 1, 2026: DISH and Gray announce a multi-year deal and begin restoring the 226 channels.
4. May 7, 2026: Gray’s chairman and CEO tells investors the blackout was the first extended dropout in company history.

Hilton Howell spoke on Gray’s first-quarter call on Thursday, May 7, 2026. The chairman and CEO said the company regretted the hit to local viewers and advertisers, and he said the new deal matched Gray’s internal expectations.

On Friday, Gray and DISH resolved the first extended distribution blackout, amazingly, in our company’s history. It was a rough negotiation for both sides, and we very much regret how local viewers and advertisers were impacted by the impasse. In the end, we reached a new multi-year agreement that was consistent with our internal expectations.

Hilton Howell, Chairman and CEO, Gray Media Q1 2026 earnings call

Gray reported $768 million in first-quarter revenue at the high end of its guidance even with the DISH fight. It said it had finished retransmission renewals with three of its largest traditional pay-TV distributors, about 39 percent of that footprint, and had no further retransmission talks left in 2026. The contract text stayed private.

KJCT is back on DISH under that May 1 deal. Grand Junction satellite homes spent 52 days without their ABC station so two companies could argue over a clause the public still has not seen.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did DISH Drop KJCT News 8?

DISH dropped KJCT on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, and KJCT’s own post went up at 5:15 p.m. MDT the same afternoon, after the renewal talks failed that day.

When Did KJCT Return to DISH?

KJCT returned on Friday, May 1, 2026, after DISH announced the deal from Englewood, Colo., and Gray stations said customers should see the signal again within a couple of hours.

Who Owns KJCT News 8?

Gray Media owns KJCT. It is a publicly traded station group (NYSE: GTN) that treated the DISH fight on its May 7 call as a one-off, with no other retransmission talks left in 2026.

What Other Channels Left DISH With KJCT?

CW 13 and Ion left at the same time, because DISH carried them with KJCT News 8 as a local bundle, so the failed renewal blanked all three at once.

How Can You Watch KJCT Without DISH?

An over-the-air antenna still receives KJCT because the DISH contract never controls the free transmitter; the station also told viewers to search “KJCT News 8” in the Android, Roku, Fire and Apple TV app stores.