Another Court Loss for EchoStar By Ted Hearn MultiChannel News
8/7/2006 9:50:00 PM http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6360281.html EchoStar Communications suffered a court loss Monday regarding its ability to provide out-of-market feeds of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox programming to about 1.2 million customers around the country, an EchoStar official said Monday. EchoStar asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to stay a key ruling while the case was on appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court refused the request Monday. The case returns to federal district court in south Florida Aug. 15, an EchoStar official said. The 11th Circuit instructed the lower court to issue an injunction to stop EchoStar's distant network service. The 11th Circuit found that EchoStar had been selling the programming to hundreds of thousands of customers who were legally ineligible to buy it. Previously, EchoStar asked the lower court to postpone the injunction until Sept. 11, claiming that the time could be used to reach an out-of-court settlement with hundreds of network affiliates that accused EchoStar of copyright infringement. Broadcasters have agreed to the Sept. 11 postponement. Satellite subscribers may buy distant network signals from EchoStar if poor antenna reception prevents seeing their local affiliates. Network affiliates demonstrated in court that EchoStar sold distant programming to hundreds of thousands of subscribers who had adequate antenna reception. Under the 11th Circuit's ruling, EchoStar would need to cut off an estimated 600,000 subscribers who have been receiving the network programming legally. Some on Capitol Hill are concerned that legally served consumers are going to swamp them in angry mail if they lose their distant network signals. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
