The big 4 nets sued Dish for, essentially, selling Distant Nets to those the big 4 believed did not qualify. The court was set to rule, not favorably for Dish, when Dish came to an agreement with the nets to be paid something like 700 millon dollars to continue d
Distant Nets and the suit to be dropped. Oh yeah, the nets said YES to the money, but ALL 4 nets needed to agree to the settlement for the court to affirm it, the ONLY net NOT agree to the proposal wa FOX because FOX is owned by Rupert Murdoch and at the time Rupert also owned, you guessed it, DirecTV. We would all have kept our distant nets if companies were not allowed to be both an MVPD and a broadcaster.
Yes, Dish is allowed DNS, but with tighter rules as SHIVRA (or whatever the acronym) tightened it up for all DBS.