Judge: Amended Dish Carriage Deal Lead To Live Game Package for NFL Network
Broadcast Rights Were Contingent on Carriage on America's Top 100 Tier
Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 1/16/2009 12:57:33 PM
The NFL Network secured rights to live broadcasts of an
eight-game regular season package in 2006 after Dish Network agreed to carry
the service on its most widely distributed tier, according to a court ruling
released Thursday.
That disclosure was made by New York State Supreme Court Judge Richard Lowe in a 21-page ruling stemming from a lawsuit that NFL Network lodged against EchoStar, the parent company of Dish Network, a year ago. Lowe's decision was unsealed Thursday, and a trial on the case has been scheduled for June.
In his decision, Lowe refused to immediately order Dish Network to put NFL Network back on America's Top 100, its most widely distributed tier.
However, Lowe also ruled that the action that prompted Dish to move NFL Network from its America's Top 100-the network's simulcast of a historic New England Patriot-New York Giants game in December 2007-"did not trigger the specific contract provisions allowing EchoStar to drop the NFL to a lower level of service last February," NFL Network said in its own statement.
"This is an important ruling for us." NFL Network President Steve Bornstein said in a prepared statement.
NFL Network sued Dish Network after the satellite provider moved the network to its America's Top 200 tier on Feb. 20 last year, resulting in the sports service losing about 4 million subscribers.
"We are pleased that the court denied the NFL Network's motion for summary judgment to enforce the 2006 agreement between the parties," Dish Network said in a prepared statement earlier this week. "As a result of the ruling, the NFL Network will continue to be offered to Dish Network customers in only our AT200 and AT250 packaging tiers. This will give our customers a choice of programming packages and will not burden all our customers with the cost of the NFL Network."
But NFL Network accused Dish Network of issuing "a highly misleading statement" on Lowe's ruling.
According to NFL Network, "The court decision referred to in that statement actually granted summary judgment to NFL Network on the key issue that led to this dispute.
The court ruled that the simulcast of the historic Patriots-Giants game in December 2007 did not trigger the specific contract provision allowing EchoStar to drop the NFL Network to a lower level of service last February."
Dish Network pulled NFL Network from the "free preview" in is America's Top 100 package last year, moving it to its AT 200 tier, in response to the network's decision to simulcast a Dec. 28, 2007 game that featured the then-undefeated Patriots against the Giants on CBS and NBC. Dish claimed that simulcast violated its contract with NFL Network.
Lowe wrote that NFL Network's "motion for summary judgment is denied to the extent that it seeks a declaration that the simulcast of the Patriots-Giants game was not a material breach of the parties' agreement."
According to Lowe's ruling, NFL Network and Dish Network reached an initial carriage deal in September 2005, in which the satellite provider agreed to carry the sports network on AT 200, its second-most widely distributed tier.
But NFL Network informed Dish in December 2005 that it would not likely secure rights to broadcast live regular season games unless Dish agreed to amend its contract, the ruling said. Dish and NFL Network did change their contract in January 2006, with Dish agreeing to carry the sports network on its broadly distributed AT 100 tier and pay a higher license fee if the sports service got the live games.
That amendment, according to NFL Network, enabled it "to secure the rights to broadcast an eight-game package of games on Thursday and Saturday evenings from 2006 through 2011, to be shown on the NFL Network and distributed by EchoStar," the judge wrote in his ruling.
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