Dish Network must drop distant network stations, court says
May 25th, 2006Dish Network customers who receive distant networks packages may lose access to local TV stations from New York and Los Angeles, under the terms of a federal appeals court ruling.
Satellite TV services may provide network stations from distant cities to subscribers who would not be able to receive local television stations with an antenna, under applicable copyright laws. But the appeals court in Atlanta said Dish Network’s parent, EchoStar Communications, made distant stations’ signals available to ineligible customers.
The court also said EchoStar failed to make good on promises to stop the practice.
“As if the magnitude of its ineligible subscriber base were insufficiently disconcerting, we have found no indication that EchoStar was ever interested in complying with the act,” the panel wrote. “EchoStar has disregarded the limitations of its statutory license and sought to avoid its obligations under the act at every turn.”
A court injunction would apparently bar Dish Network from delivering distant signals even to eligible subscribers, according to Multichannel News. The number of affected subscribers isn’t known; the dispute began in 1998, and Dish Network now delivers local stations via satellite to more customers. The satellite TV provider has since reached settlement agreements with hundreds of stations.
• Links: Washington Post; Multichannel News
kathy radley says:
November 23rd, 2006 at 5:08 am
I asked Dish about getting a closer abc chanel. I get L.A. now. and they have one out of San Fransico. Dish said that no satellite company will be able to give us ABC. Is this true? Or is it just Dish?
Thanks for your help
kathy
Steven Sande says:
November 23rd, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Kathy, I’ve posted an update about Dish Network being forced to drop distant channels. Please have a look here.
Richard Averill says:
November 30th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
We live full time in our motorhome (rv) and travel all around the country working at campgrounds, volunteering at parks, etc. As such, we do not have a base for local channels and many of the areas we frequent, such as national parks, etc., do not have local tv reception, including Big Bend National Park where we are currently volunteering until April, 2007. We have an rv exemption with Dish network for distant networks but, with the recent ruling we have now lost that option and cannot receive any network stations. Are there any options for us, and others like us, to receive networks via satellite?
Thank you
Larry says:
December 6th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Due to this new ruling..we have lost our distant network channels, which was part of our package with DISH. DISH did come out to our rural Virginia home, but due to mountain interference, the antenna idea..will not work in our case. (DISH Offers this free of charge)
While TV Is not my life..there are things we enjoy watching. Besides moving…lol, does anyone out there have any suggestions, we might try??
Many Thanks!
Gary Marrs says:
December 11th, 2006 at 1:35 am
Due to this ruling we have lost network channels. True they were from L.A., and I am here in Oregon, but I am in a place where I can’t get them off air. I would love to get the Local stations on dish, but for some reason we are in the only county, in the whole state, that can’t get local stations via dish network. Why is this? If our stations don’t want us to be able to recieve them, we should we allowed options. I feel we are being discriminated against. I am not allowed to view abc, nbc, cbs or fox channels even though it is possible through dish network. I just hope the judge that ordered this got his or her channels cut off too!!!! I also hope that business that advertise on my local channels realized that they are not getting what they are paying for. There are a lot of people here that are unable to see their advertisments.
Cut off in La Pine, Or.
Norma Nieves says:
December 29th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
You most bring information related to this matterin spanish. You have a lot of customer who speaks spanish. PLEASE
Steven Sande says:
December 29th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Norma, I’m sorry these pages aren’t available in Spanish. Have you tried Google’s translation tools?
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=es