consumers lose either way. they win this and we will have another over priced worthless channel forced on everyone or the very few that want it wont be able to see it because TWC wont sell it ala carte
I just read a quick summary of what is happening and it doesn't sound like they are being sued because they didn't want to carry the channel. They are being sued because they allegedly went out of their way to illegally convince AT&T, Cox, and Charter not to carry the channel either and shared information with them to get that done.
It is a channel just like every other RSN. The other companies didn't have to say no just because Directv did. That isn't the problem. The problem is that Directv allegedly went to AT&T, Cox, and Charter to convince them to say no for the purpose of driving the price down. That is illegal.
The theory is that if Directv can get everyone else to say no too TWC would be forced to lower the price to get people on board. The only problem with that is that major competitors in an industry aren't allowed to collude like that and try to fix prices.
If all of the providers would have decided to say no to carrying the channel on their own that would have been fine. Allegedly Directv contacted the other providers, shared information with them, and asked them not to pick up the channel. We'll see if that turns out to be true and whether they are able to prove it.
Exactly, it has nothing to do with forcing DirecTV to carry the channel, and the outcome of this will not be DirecTV carrying the channel(although they may, this lawsuit has nothing to do with that), it's all about restraint of trade, similar businesses conspiring to limit the ability of a third party to sell their product on the open market.
It is a channel just like every other RSN. The other companies didn't have to say no just because Directv did. That isn't the problem. The problem is that Directv allegedly went to AT&T, Cox, and Charter to convince them to say no for the purpose of driving the price down. That is illegal.