Voom Claims More Than $1 Billion In Damages From Dish Diss
Network Claims DBS Breached Contract By Ditching 15-Year Carriage Deal
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 6/2/2008 12:41:00 PM
Voom HD has filed an amended complaint against EchoStar, claiming it will suffer more than $1 billion in damages because the satellite provider dropped its 15-channel HD suite last month.
Voom filed its 28-page breach-of-contract action last week in New York Supreme Court against EchoStar, now known as Dish Network. It amends the suit that Rainbow Media’s Voom filed back in January against EchoStar, and claims the satellite company violated the affiliation agreement between both parties when it dropped the Voom networks in May.
The 100-count amended complaint claims that EchoStar was looking for ways to terminate the valid 15-year carriage deal it forged with Voom in 2005 by making “baseless” charges that Voom had violated the agreement.
“EchoStar had no right to terminate the affiliation agreement on the basis of a trumped-up and pretextual claim of breach simply because it no longer liked the deal it struck,” Voom said in its amended document. “Unable to prevent EchoStar from ‘pulling the plug’ on Voom, Voom HD now has been forced to bring this suit for breach of contract to recover well in excess of $1 billion of damages that it will suffer as a result of EchoStar’s wrongful and improper termination.”
The affiliation deal initially called for the satellite provider to pay a license fee of $3.25 a month per HD subscriber receiving Voom.
“With EchoStar’s HD subscriber base already having expanded from approximately 20,000 at the end of 2005 to approximately 1.3 million at the end of 2007, and its HD subscriber base projected to grow to more than 11 million by the end of the term of the contract, Voom HD was expected start turning a profit as early as 2009, and generate billions of dollars in revenue over the life of the affiliation agreement,” Voom said in its amended complaint.
EchoStar declined to comment on Voom’s amended complaint last week. Alleging a breach in their deal, EchoStar dumped the Voom networks in May.
Voom said it’s already spent more than $300 million on its HD suite, whose only other distributor is Cablevision Systems, parent of Rainbow Media.
“Since the middle of 2007, EchoStar has been dissatisfied with its payment obligations under the affiliation agreement, and tried to fabricate a basis for avoiding its commitments to Voom HD,” the amended complaint said.
EchoStar has charged the Voom HD failed to meet its investment requirement for the suite, which Voom HD denied.
Voom HD is seeking “substantial damages in an amount to be determined at trial.”
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I hope VOOM wins the suit. Why you ask? Well I was a subscriber to Voom HD when they were a standalone company available only at Sears. It cost me roughly $2000 + tax for three boxes, roughly 30 HD channels and only a few cable channels. I also carried basic cable to get more cable channels and HBO etc. Within a couple of months VOOM took off at least I thought. They were adding channels left and right and even had Encore HD back in 2004. It rocked. I had numerous HBO channels, 6 Showtimes, 7 Starz, and quite a few C-max, definately more than Directv offers in C-max now. I was happier with VOOM then than I have been with Directv now, or Dish network, or even Comcast cable. None of them come close to what Voom was. I havent talked to a single subscriber to VOOM that wasnt 100% happy with what they had. They listened to their subscribers and worked hard to offer it quickly too. To beat that it only took one dish with them, a small 18" round dish like Directv used to use years ago. AND to top it all off they were transmitting in MPEG-4 with Top of the Line Motorola receivers back in 2002. WOW where has the time gone. My wife and I were talking the other night that Voom was the only satellite company we were both 100% satisfied with. It worked flawlessly from the start. These guys had great engineers who had definately done their homework. I would pay a nice premium like $20 a month to have the 15 VOOM channels back. If Dish picked them back up I would pay an early termination fee to leave Directv to have them back I miss monsters Hd and RUSH HD that much. Nothing on TV comes close to those 2 channels. Another option is for Directv to pick them up. If a subscriber wants them they could pay a premium to recieve them. If not then dont get them. OR Directv could offer them in their HD package and only go up 3 bucks a month on HD rates. That makes perfect sense. It is bad business to take over a company and can channels that folks have grown acustomed to over the years. I never missed a night of Voom HD channels. I have 2 friends that work at the same Kroger grocery store as I do that subscribed to Voom also. Come back VOOM its never to late. You would make a LOT of folks very very happy.
Dr. Warren L. Wilkinson II - 1/17/2009 10:23:56 PM EST -
I hope VOOM wins the suit. Why you ask? Well I was a subscriber to Voom HD when they were a standalone company available only at Sears. It cost me roughly $2000 + tax for three boxes, roughly 30 HD channels and only a few cable channels. I also carried basic cable to get more cable channels and HBO etc. Within a couple of months VOOM took off at least I thought. They were adding channels left and right and even had Encore HD back in 2004. It rocked. I had numerous HBO channels, 6 Showtimes, 7 Starz, and quite a few C-max, definately more than Directv offers in C-max now. I was happier with VOOM then than I have been with Directv now, or Dish network, or even Comcast cable. None of them come close to what Voom was. I havent talked to a single subscriber to VOOM that wasnt 100% happy with what they had. They listened to their subscribers and worked hard to offer it quickly too. To beat that it only took one dish with them, a small 18" round dish like Directv used to use years ago. AND to top it all off they were transmitting in MPEG-4 with Top of the Line Motorola receivers back in 2002. WOW where has the time gone. My wife and I were talking the other night that Voom was the only satellite company we were both 100% satisfied with. It worked flawlessly from the start. These guys had great engineers who had definately done their homework. I would pay a nice premium like $20 a month to have the 15 VOOM channels back. If Dish picked them back up I would pay an early termination fee to leave Directv to have them back I miss monsters Hd and RUSH HD that much. Nothing on TV comes close to those 2 channels. Another option is for Directv to pick them up. If a subscriber wants them they could pay a premium to recieve them. If not then dont get them. OR Directv could offer them in their HD package and only go up 3 bucks a month on HD rates. That makes perfect sense. It is bad business to take over a company and can channels that folks have grown acustomed to over the years. I never missed a night of Voom HD channels. I have 2 friends that work at the same Kroger grocery store as I do that subscribed to Voom also. Come back VOOM its never to late. You would make a LOT of folks very very happy.
Dr. Warren L. Wilkinson II - 1/17/2009 10:23:25 PM EST -
I hope Voom wins too!!
Daniel Gaines - 7/10/2008 9:44:00 PM EDT -
I hope Voom wins the lawsuit! especially when dish clearly manipulates the truth. They claim to be the leaders in HD, they claim to have added 22 new HD bringing their total to 80 HD. That is all false marketing hype twisting the truth. Here is the truth they only have about 40 HD as many channels are duplicated on 2-4 channels. There are only 7 new channels as they fail to mention they removed the 15 Voom HD. Most of their HD lineup is up converted and not true HD. Their picture quality has gone down. Here are a couple examples of the new channels, the weather channel and the cartoon network; come on dish whom even cares about those and there is no real difference in seeing those in HD?
I'm going to cancel dish next month!
Al - 6/10/2008 1:55:00 PM EDT
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