Jury broadly clears News Corp unit in DISH suit

How can anyone comment its a bad decision when you were not in the court room. Keep on listening to news reports to formulate your decision. The jury may have made the right decision based on the information provided to them.
 
This is somewhat surprising based on what the judge said early into the trial, "the case could be worth more than $1 billion." It certainly looked liked E* would be getting $200 million or more in damanges. I guess the jury members were former/current Dish Network customers bitter about having their CourtTV, Lifetime, distant locals and VOOM channels yanked from their lineup without warning, as well as paying for HD only to receive HD-Lite.:p

I guess E* will be having to pay TiVo $150 million out of their own pocket soon...not to mention facing additional litigation by TiVo with DirecTV (owners of ReplayTV) joining the suite. Charlie could be in for a VOOMin'.

Speaking of VOOM and billion dollar litigation...Rainbow Media (aka VOOM HD Networks) could potentially receive a huge payday if EchoStar is found to have broken their affiliate agreement with VOOM in violation of cure provisions. Based on their past performances in court, I would not put my money on the E* litigation team. VOOM may have lost the the preliminary injunction to keep the channel on Dish Network, but that doesn't mean they won't beat EchoStar in front of a jury.

"The Voom-EchoStar 2005 carriage deal, which Voom described as a “multi-billion dollar, 15-year contract,” called for EchoStar to pay a subscriber fee of $3.25 a month per HD customer in the first year of deal, with annual increases until it reached $6.43 a month in the pact’s final year."

- EchoStar claims VOOM did not meet the $100 million spending limit; VOOM claims they did.
- EchoStar claims they can terminate the affiliation agreement for VOOM breaching the Spending Limit; VOOM says even if they did breach the Spending Limit, there are "Cure Provisions" in the affiliation agreement to remedy the situation.

Additionally, by my records VOOM was supposed to be a 21 channel package. Wasn't it EchoStar who limited it to only 15 channels? If so, were there provisions in the affiliation agreement to address this? Does someone have old "Charlie Chat" footage where he mentioned his decision to scale back or keep VOOM HD at 15 channels? Lot's of interested stuff regarding this case...

In April 2005, subsidiaries of Cablevision and CSC Holdings entered into agreements with EchoStar Communications Corporation (?EchoStar?) relating to the launch and operation of the business of Rainbow HD Holdings, LLC, the Company?s VOOM 21 high-definition television programming service. Under those arrangements, EchoStar will initially distribute a portion of the Rainbow HD programming service and, beginning in 2006, if the contemplated transactions have been completed, will carry all 21 of the channels included in the Rainbow HD programming service. In connection with the arrangements, EchoStar would be issued a 20% interest in Rainbow HD Holdings, the Company.

May 12, 2005
Cablevision has agreed to spend at least $100 million per year to fund the 21 high-definition channels that are all that's left of the failed Voom satellite TV service. The commitment was disclosed in a quarterly financial filing by Cablevision Systems Corp., which shut the Voom service April 30 but decided to keep operating the channels and pitching them for cable and satellite TV providers to carry. The spending minimum, which is capped at $500 million, is part of a 15-year deal under which EchoStar Communications will offer the channels to its Dish Network customers. EchoStar gets a 20-percent stake in those channels under the deal, the filing disclosed. If Cablevision reduces the number of HD channels, it can cut the spending to as low as $38 million per year. If it falls short of the minimums, EchoStar can drop the channels.

"It's an awful lot of money for Cablevision to continue to spend for these networks," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Cablevision has said it invested about $1 billion in Voom, which attracted only 48,000 customers. It estimates the shutdown will cost as much as an additional $155 million, plus $45.8 million for settling liabilities.

Voom's sole satellite is being sold to EchoStar for $200 million.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
 
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The jury may have made the right decision based on the information provided to them.
Which is further evidence that the DISH Network legal team is ineffective (if not incompetent) in representing the interests of the company.

If anyone is being paid off, it might just be the attorneys.
 
- EchoStar claims VOOM did not meet the $100 million spending limit; VOOM claims they did.
- EchoStar claims they can terminate the affiliation agreement for VOOM breaching the Spending Limit; VOOM says even if they did breach the Spending Limit, there are "Cure Provisions" in the affiliation agreement to remedy the situation.
Are the VOOM financials a matter of public record? Even if they aren't, I'd imagine that DISH Network would have negotiated an audit to insure contract compliance.

I'd prefer the use of the term "threshold" as opposed to "limit".
 
Unless I am reading this wrong this article spins it to read completely opposite.

DISH: Court Rules NDS Violated Laws In Stealing Signals

From the article - "Dish Network noted NDS would be responsible for DISH's attorney fees, and that Dish was vindicated on NDS's meritless counterclaims."

NDS was ordered to pay $1500. Must've been the legal fees...

I guess Charlie needs someone other than his cousin Vinny to represent him.
 
So basically E* gets $1500 for their time and they have to pay their own lawyers -- they should demand their money back. They got hosed!

As for Voom -- Voom violated the agreement with E* when they did not invest in new programming. They have been showing the same thing over and over for two years. Very little new programing has been introduced over the last two years from Voom and that in of itself violates their agreement to deliver new HD content to E*.

And the Tivo lawsuit is all but over -- none of the VIP receivers are covered under the current ruling so Charlie will just have to pay Tivo and then exchange out all the old dvrs for new ones. Charlie should of bought Tivo when he had the chance.
 
I hope Charlie wasn't relying on the 1.5 Bil. settlement money for the 2nd Qtr. profits.
 
So basically E* gets $1500 for their time and they have to pay their own lawyers -- they should demand their money back. They got hosed!

NDS has to pay the Dish Lawyers. So, it will probably amount to a few million dollars, no one got rich except the lawyers.

This thread should be kept on topic, TiVo and VOOM have enough of their own threads.
 
NDS has to pay the Dish Lawyers. So, it will probably amount to a few million dollars, no one got rich except the lawyers.

This thread should be kept on topic, TiVo and VOOM have enough of their own threads.

From: Wall Street Journal
DISH Chief Executive Charlie Ergen, speaking to analysts during its quarterly conference on Tuesday, said piracy continues to be a major issue for the company.
DISH noted NDS would be responsible for DISH's attorney fees, and that Dish was vindicated on NDS' "meritless" counterclaims.


News Corp. is owner of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.
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Stock Notes: Monday, May 12 stock started at 30.11, it is at 33.56 at closing today. After hours, it was at 33.59! The company is still having a great week.
 
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