DirecTV, Lifetime Settle Up
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 7/8/2007 6:00:00 PM MT
DirecTV and Lifetime Television won't be going to trial this summer, having officially settled their litigation last month.
The nation's largest satellite provider withdrew its breach-of-contract suit against the women's programmer, and Lifetime dismissed its counterclaim against the direct-broadcast satellite provider, according to a stipulation filed June 26 in the U.S. District Court of Central California in Los Angeles.
Terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
“The dispute has been amicably resolved and the parties look forward to building upon their very productive business relationship,” Lifetime director of trade and business publicity Gary Morgenstein said in a statement. DirecTV declined to comment.
The two parties reached a tentative settlement in May, according to court papers, and subsequently had been hammering out the details.
DirecTV filed suit against Lifetime in March 2006, alleging that the programmer reneged on a deal to pay $200 per head to EchoStar Communications' Dish Network subscribers who switched over to DirecTV earlier that year. Lifetime made the offer after it was dropped, for about one month, by Dish during a contract dispute.
Lifetime, which denied that it was in breach of any contract, filed a counterclaim against DirecTV in April 2006.
The women's network complained that DirecTV was withholding license fees from it.
Without a settlement, the case had been slated to go to trial this summer.
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