Dish Network customers lose Nexstar's local TV stations in 115 markets over failed negotiations

Dish Network customers have fewer channels as of tonight – for the time being.

At 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Nexstar's local television stations went dark on Dish after contract negotiations between the companies broke down.

Nexstar owns 164 local stations – including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC network affiliates – in 115 markets, covering about 63% of TV homes.

"We made a fair offer to keep Nexstar stations available to our customers, but Nexstar rejected it," said Group President of Dish TV Brian Neylon in a statement.

For its part, Nexstar released a statement saying Dish was refusing to reach a new distribution agreement. A fact disputed by Neylon who continued to say Dish "offered to extend the current contract and hold subscribers harmless while negotiations continue — once at 11:53am MST and again at 3:11pm MST — but Nexstar never responded."

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The contract between the two companies expired Dec. 2. Dish says Nexstar is asking for "over $1 billion in fees for stations that are available for free over the air," while Nexstar claims the other is proposing "rates that are less than fair market value."

AT&T and broadcaster Tegna also failed to reach a new agreement Tuesday, resulting in more than 60 stations lost on DirecTV, AT&T U-verse and the AT&T TV streaming service.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dish, Nexstar negotiation fail, leave 115 markets with fewer channels