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Hulu Live loses Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates

Phil Nickinson
By

If you’re a subscriber of Hulu With Live TV and woke up today without your local ABC affiliate, you’re not alone. The streaming service no longer has access to ABC affiliates owned by Sinclair.

Hulu With Live TV guide.
Phil Nickinson/Digital Trends / Digital Trends

That doesn’t mean that you won’t see any ABC content — ABC shows are still available on demand, as is ABC via the “Localish” channel. But if you rely on a Sinclair-owned ABC affiliate for local programming, it’ll be missing.

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While Hulu hasn’t released a definitive list of the lost affiliates, Sinclair owns “local and regional platforms reaching approximately 70% of the U.S. population,” according to the company’s website. And its list of ABC affiliates includes such metropolitan service areas (that’s the term by which markets are described instead of mere “cities”) as Washington, D.C. (ranked 8th in the country), Seattle-Tacoma (No. 12), St. Louis (No. 24), and Portland, Ore. (No. 22.)

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Hulu also hasn’t put out any official press statements, but the Hulu Support Twitter account is replying to incoming tweets that “Sinclair owns a number of local ABC affiliates across the country and as of March 8, Hulu no longer has the rights to distribute those channels (hulu.tv/MyChannels). Let us know if you have other questions!”

Hi, Neal! Sinclair owns a number of local ABC affiliates across the country and as of March 8, Hulu no longer has the rights to distribute those channels (https://t.co/7pc7PlOh6b). Let us know if you have other questions!

— Hulu Support (@hulu_support) March 9, 2023

More on Hulu With Live TV

Carrier disputes such as this aren’t uncommon in the streaming space, nor are they limited to Hulu With Live TV, which is the second largest live streaming service in the U.S. at 4.5 million subscribers at the end of 2022. YouTube TV, which also has seen its share of carriage disputes, reported having more than 5 million subscribers in June 2022 but hasn’t updated since.

Hulu With Live TV costs $70 a month and features more than 90 channels. (Minus local Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates.) It includes the on-demand Hulu library, too, and also gets you subscriptions to Disney+ and ESPN+.

Here’s the full list of Sinclair ABC affiliates as seen on its website:

  • Abilene-Sweetwater
  • Amarillo, Texas
  • Birmingham, Ala.
  • Champaign-Springfield-Decatur, Ill.
  • Charleston-Huntington, W.Va.
  • Chattanooga, Tenn.
  • Columbus, Ohio
  • Dayton, Ohio
  • Eureka, Calif.
  • Florence-Myrtle Beach, S.C.
  • Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, N.C.
  • Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.; Asheville, N.C.; Anderson, S.C.
  • Greenville-New Bern-Washington, N.C.
  • Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney, Neb.
  • Little Rock-Pine Bluff, Ark.
  • Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola, Fla.
  • Ottumwa, Iowa-Kirksville, Mo.
  • Portland, Ore.
  • Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va.
  • Rochester, N.Y.
  • San Angelo, Texas
  • Seattle-Tacoma, Wa.
  • St. Louis, Mo.
  • Traverse City-Cadillac, Mich.
  • Tulsa, Okla.
  • Washington, D.C.

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