CBS Stations Dropped from AT&T DirecTV in Select Markets

CBS-owned stations went dark early Saturday for DirecTV, U-verse and DirecTV NOW customers after the network and AT&T didn't reach a new agreement.

The previous contract expired at 2 a.m. EDT Saturday and both CBS and AT&T warned customers of the possible outage earlier in the week.

"CBS has put our customers into the middle of its negotiations by pulling its local CBS stations in 14 cities. We were willing to continue to negotiate and also offered to pay CBS an unprecedented rate increase," AT&T said in a statement Saturday. "That increase would present CBS the highest fee we currently pay to any major broadcast network group, despite the fact that CBS stations are available free over the air."