More Details on "Rural Satellite TV Consumers To Lose Network Programming" Posted by Bob at 11/22/06 10:49 AM

Earlier this week we told you about a federal court case that could rob hundreds of thousands of rural satellite television consumers of their access to the big broadcast networks such as NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox.

We've done a bit more digging on this story and have some new details and additional perspective.

First, a recap.

The case involves Echostar Communications, which along with DirectTV dominates the U.S. satellite television market. The issue is so-called "distant broadcast" signals, where rural customers are not served by a broadcast local network affiliate. Echostar typically beams in a local network affiliate from another area to provide network programming to such rural customers. That means Echostar's customers in rural Alaska might receive their Fox programming from a local affiliate in Los Angeles or their CBS programming from Orlando. A federal court recently issued an injunction forbidding Echostar from beaming such distant signals from network affiliates to its satellite television customers. That injunction takes effect on Dec. 1.

Now the additional details and perspective.

First, Echostar clearly broke the law by sending distant network signals to more customers than it should have. The rules on this are complicated, but Echostar broke them.

Second, the harsh penalty the court imposed was one required by law. Denying the signals to all customers when the provider has a pattern and practice of abuse is set in stone by statute. The court didn't really have a choice.

Third, the big three networks, and four associations of network affiliates agreed to settle this lawsuit, but Fox refused, scuttling the whole deal.

And it is very important to note that Fox had a clear financial motive to torpedo the deal. It owns DirecTV, which gains a big competitive boost when Echostar customers lose their networks.

Sen. Patrick Leahy is reportedly working on some legislation to address the issue. Consumers Union recently sent a letter to all members of the Senate urging legislative action before court injunction kicks in on December 1.

You can see what Echostar had to say about the lawsuit here and you can see what the National Association of Broadcasters had to say about it here.

comments (1)

1 Posted by Pat Norton at 11/30/06 03:32 PM

As an Echostar subscriber, I now have no local channels. I was receiving my channels from Portland, Oregon which is 3 hours away. They sent out installers to put up an antenna for local channels yesterday (November 29,2006) but they left without doing so, because it wasn't bringing in any of the channels. We cannot get cable TV in our area either. I live at the very end of Deschutes County in Central Oregon.