While people will be ringing in the new year, viewers watching the Hearst stations at midnight on DirecTV might get a bit of a surprise.

Hearst is in a retransmission pissing match with DirecTV and is warning viewers that the station might go dark on the bird at midnight.

The Hearst stations have posted a warning about the blackout on their websites:

DIRECTV and Hearst Television Inc., parent company of (Insert Hearst station call letters here), are currently negotiating a renewal of the retransmission consent agreement for the carriage of Hearst broadcast stations on DIRECTV’s systems. The current agreement expires at midnight on December 31, 2019.

They go on to say:

While we hope to conclude our negotiations before December 31st, so as not to deprive any of our respective viewers and customers of our programming, we want to advise our viewers and customers that the possibility of non-renewal of our current agreement exists.

In the end, the two sides will come to an agreement which may happen Today, next week, or next month.

At that point, the two sides will not discus the final agreement and soon your DirecTV bill will be going up, as the rich get richer on the backs of the consumer.