EchoStar Seeking 120-Day Transition
Courtesy MultiChannelNews.COM
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6371889.html
By Ted Hearn 9/13/2006 5:11:00 PM
In a court filing late Tuesday, EchoStar Communications asked for at least 120 business days to comply if ordered by a federal judge to terminate Big Four network programming to more than 800,000 subscribers largely located in rural areas.
EchoStar is facing a sweeping injunction from a federal judge in south Florida that would bar it from selling ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox programming to a class of subscribers who qualify under federal law to purchase imported network signals because local affiliates can’t be viewed with off-air antennas.
News Corp. -- which controls DirecTV, EchoStar’s main rival -- is insisting that the scope of the injunction should include all four networks. But EchoStar claimed in the court filing that because 95% of network affiliates have settled, any injunction should be narrow, applying just to the delivery of Fox programming in the 25 markets where Fox owns TV stations.
EchoStar is in legal trouble after court rulings found that the direct-broadcast satellite company sold distant network signals to hundreds of thousands of ineligible customers. The sudden cutoff of popular network programming has some on Capitol Hill worried. Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is trying to pass legislation that would avoid a massive cutoff.
EchoStar told the court it would need at least four months to help consumers find alternative means of receiving network programming, including purchase of a local-TV-signal package in the 165 markets where that option is available.
The company added that another option for cutoff subscribers was an “off-air antenna,” but that seemed a strange rationale for extra time because the distant network option was created by Congress to serve viewers for whom off-air antennas were useless.
Lastly, EchoStar said that without a reasonable transition period, it feared that 10 company-owned-and-operated call centers would become “clogged,” upsetting existing and potential customers seeking personal service.
Courtesy MultiChannelNews.COM
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6371889.html
By Ted Hearn 9/13/2006 5:11:00 PM
In a court filing late Tuesday, EchoStar Communications asked for at least 120 business days to comply if ordered by a federal judge to terminate Big Four network programming to more than 800,000 subscribers largely located in rural areas.
EchoStar is facing a sweeping injunction from a federal judge in south Florida that would bar it from selling ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox programming to a class of subscribers who qualify under federal law to purchase imported network signals because local affiliates can’t be viewed with off-air antennas.
News Corp. -- which controls DirecTV, EchoStar’s main rival -- is insisting that the scope of the injunction should include all four networks. But EchoStar claimed in the court filing that because 95% of network affiliates have settled, any injunction should be narrow, applying just to the delivery of Fox programming in the 25 markets where Fox owns TV stations.
EchoStar is in legal trouble after court rulings found that the direct-broadcast satellite company sold distant network signals to hundreds of thousands of ineligible customers. The sudden cutoff of popular network programming has some on Capitol Hill worried. Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is trying to pass legislation that would avoid a massive cutoff.
EchoStar told the court it would need at least four months to help consumers find alternative means of receiving network programming, including purchase of a local-TV-signal package in the 165 markets where that option is available.
The company added that another option for cutoff subscribers was an “off-air antenna,” but that seemed a strange rationale for extra time because the distant network option was created by Congress to serve viewers for whom off-air antennas were useless.
Lastly, EchoStar said that without a reasonable transition period, it feared that 10 company-owned-and-operated call centers would become “clogged,” upsetting existing and potential customers seeking personal service.
