If you’re a Verizon Fios customer in RI, your TV screen could go dark at midnight tonight. The culprit isn’t a technical glitch; it’s a corporate shakedown. Nexstar Media Group, the largest owner of local television stations in the country and the parent company of WPRI Channel 12, is demanding what one watchdog group calls “exorbitant” price increases from Verizon.

It’s a tired routine that corporate media giants like Nexstar have perfected. They manufacture a crisis, threaten a blackout of popular programming, and then try to pit viewers against their cable provider, all in the name of extracting fatter profits.

In a note posted on its website, Verizon was blunt. “The rising cost of programming is the single biggest factor in higher TV bills and we are fighting to keep prices reasonable for you,” the company stated, adding that they “simply cannot agree to the significant price increases they [Nexstar] have asked for to date.”

Nexstar, for its part, offered a terse confirmation from its Executive Vice President Gary Weitman, stating, “we can confirm our distribution agreement with Verizon is expiring soon. We are in active discussions on a new agreement.” They have otherwise refused to justify their demands.

This fight isn’t just about one channel. Because Nexstar is a massive conglomerate with over 200 stations nationally, it uses its ownership of 14 stations in 10 major markets, including New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., to bully providers. Essentially, they are saying: “Pay our high rates for all of them, or your customers get none of them.” This leverage allows them to demand fee increases that get passed directly to you, the consumer.

According to the American Television Alliance (ATA), a pay-TV-backed advocacy group, these “retransmission consent fees” have skyrocketed by an overwhelming 2,000 percent since 2010. The result has been over 2,400 TV blackouts, with consumers repeatedly caught in the middle.

However, the ground is shifting under Nexstar’s feet. Public sentiment, once easily swayed against the cable/satellite companies, is getting wise to the scheme. People are realizing that it’s the massive rate hikes demanded by channel owners that are driving up their bills. At the same time, cable providers like Verizon have less and less to lose. The real money in home service is now internet access, not the dying medium of traditional cable TV. With more customers “cutting the cord” every year, there is little incentive for Verizon to pay a king’s ransom for a product with a shrinking audience, and they have become more aggressive in holding the line against unreasonable demands.

Making this cynical game even more transparent is Nexstar’s propaganda website, www.keepmylocalstation.com, a tool designed to trick viewers into becoming unwitting lobbyists for their own rate increases. The site encourages angry customers to contact their provider, creating pressure that helps Nexstar justify its fee hikes without ever mentioning that those fees come out of the viewers’ own pockets.

This isn’t just business as usual; it’s part of a disturbing pattern of corporate consolidation and political manipulation. This is the same Nexstar that, just last month, made headlines for pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its stations. Critics have charged that actions like these are part of a broader strategy to curry favor with politicians in exchange for relaxing media ownership rules. Such deregulation would allow Nexstar to pursue otherwise illegal mergers, like its attempted purchase of Tegna, which would create a media conglomerate with unprecedented market power and influence over the local information you receive.

So, when your access to WPRI, which includes MyNetwork, True Crime Network, and Defy TV, is threatened tonight, remember who is holding the remote. This isn’t just a contract dispute. It’s a symptom of a sick system, where massive corporations leverage their power to squeeze every last dollar from working people, all while seeking to consolidate even more control over our media landscape. As families gather to watch football, Nexstar is preparing to pull the plug, weaponizing your favorite shows to pad their bottom line.