Voom Settlement?
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Investors.com News: Dish May Settle Voom Case With Cablevision: Barclays
[h=1]Dish May Settle Voom Case With Cablevision: Barclays[/h] By REINHARDT KRAUSE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10:23 AM ET
Dish Network (DISH) could seek a settlement with Cablevision (CVC) and AMC Networks (AMCX) over litigation involving the defunct Voom high-definition satellite TV service, says a Barclay's analyst.
A trial in the case is scheduled to begin Sept. 18.
Cablevision and AMC Networks could collect up to $3.5 billion in damages, including interest.
Cablevision, a New York-based cable TV firm, started a satellite TV service called Voom in 2003. Voom, with 15 channels, was one of the first TV services to broadcast in high definition. Cablevision sold Voom's assets, including an orbiting satellite, to Dish Network, then called EchoStar, in 2005.
Dish Network, which had agreed to carry the Voom channels, terminated the deal in 2008, saying Cablevision had failed to invest $100 million annually in the HD service as agreed on. Cablevision shut down the Voom service at the end of 2008. The Voom service had been part of Cablevision's Rainbow media unit, now AMC Networks.
Cablevision sued Dish Network, seeking damages of $2.5 billion.
Barclays analyst James Ratcliffe, in a report, said "a settlement at or before trial is relatively likely."
"Dish has historically been willing to fight litigation to the bitter end," he wrote. "In this case, however, we believe the company is more likely to be willing to settle, given the large absolute size of the potential downside in the event CVC/AMCX prevail, and New York state rules would require Dish, should it wish to appeal a negative trial judgment, to post a bond for the entire value of the judgment, dramatically raising the costs of an extended fight."
He says the case could be settled as part of a wider programming deal involving Dish Network and AMC Networks.
Bernstein research analyst Craig Moffett, in a report, says Dish Network is at a disadvantage if the case reaches trial.
In late 2010, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Dish Network had destroyed evidence relevant to the case.
"Cablevision and AMC enter the trial with a huge head start, having already won an adverse-inference recommendation to the jury related to Dish having destroyed documents," Moffett wrote. "In essence, the jury is to begin the trial with the assumption that Dish's destroyed records would have supported Cablevision's claims. The odds would therefore appear to be heavily in Cablevision's/AMC's favor."
Dish Network settled litigation in a separate dispute with TiVo (TIVO) last year. Englewood, Colo.-based Dish Network agreed to pay TiVo $500 million.
Dish shares were up 2.3% in early trading Friday while both Cablevision and AMC were up a fraction.
RELATED: Dish Dumps "Mad Men."
[h=1]Dish May Settle Voom Case With Cablevision: Barclays[/h] By REINHARDT KRAUSE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10:23 AM ET
Dish Network (DISH) could seek a settlement with Cablevision (CVC) and AMC Networks (AMCX) over litigation involving the defunct Voom high-definition satellite TV service, says a Barclay's analyst.
A trial in the case is scheduled to begin Sept. 18.
Cablevision and AMC Networks could collect up to $3.5 billion in damages, including interest.
Cablevision, a New York-based cable TV firm, started a satellite TV service called Voom in 2003. Voom, with 15 channels, was one of the first TV services to broadcast in high definition. Cablevision sold Voom's assets, including an orbiting satellite, to Dish Network, then called EchoStar, in 2005.
Dish Network, which had agreed to carry the Voom channels, terminated the deal in 2008, saying Cablevision had failed to invest $100 million annually in the HD service as agreed on. Cablevision shut down the Voom service at the end of 2008. The Voom service had been part of Cablevision's Rainbow media unit, now AMC Networks.
Cablevision sued Dish Network, seeking damages of $2.5 billion.
Barclays analyst James Ratcliffe, in a report, said "a settlement at or before trial is relatively likely."
"Dish has historically been willing to fight litigation to the bitter end," he wrote. "In this case, however, we believe the company is more likely to be willing to settle, given the large absolute size of the potential downside in the event CVC/AMCX prevail, and New York state rules would require Dish, should it wish to appeal a negative trial judgment, to post a bond for the entire value of the judgment, dramatically raising the costs of an extended fight."
He says the case could be settled as part of a wider programming deal involving Dish Network and AMC Networks.
Bernstein research analyst Craig Moffett, in a report, says Dish Network is at a disadvantage if the case reaches trial.
In late 2010, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Dish Network had destroyed evidence relevant to the case.
"Cablevision and AMC enter the trial with a huge head start, having already won an adverse-inference recommendation to the jury related to Dish having destroyed documents," Moffett wrote. "In essence, the jury is to begin the trial with the assumption that Dish's destroyed records would have supported Cablevision's claims. The odds would therefore appear to be heavily in Cablevision's/AMC's favor."
Dish Network settled litigation in a separate dispute with TiVo (TIVO) last year. Englewood, Colo.-based Dish Network agreed to pay TiVo $500 million.
Dish shares were up 2.3% in early trading Friday while both Cablevision and AMC were up a fraction.
RELATED: Dish Dumps "Mad Men."
mike123abc said:
Yeah, anyone remember the TiVo v. Dish fight, how many analysts predicted a settlement and TiVo shot to $20? They settled alright, but what happened to TiVo? The settlement allowed Dish to use TiVo's DVR technologies forever, the good chuck of that $500M probably was enough to pay TiVo's attorney and court costs.
Really, I have not kept up with the current, what is happening to TiVo these days?
How come none of the "analysts" mention a return of any of the VOOM channels ?
Maybe as part of a settlement Dish would carry AMC and perhaps some new VOOM like (but not called VOOM) channels.
Given how repetitive the VOOM channels were, they could easily make 1 or 2 new channels and pretty much carry all the content.
They still make very good dvrs. But sales must still be on the low side because they've been pretty cozy with cabelcos lately. Some cabelcos have been offering Tivos as dvrs instead of the usual Motorola/SA crap.
TiVo is collecting the $$ from other providers based on the Dish settlement...
But, I think Dish is now more likely to settle than they were with TiVo. Everyone likes to say Charlie this and Charlie that, but I have the impression that Charlie is not really paying Dish the attention that he used to pay it. Not to say if it looked like it was heading into a ditch or something he would not step in, but I think he will go along with what the current management proposes now.
One gets the impression that Charlie deeply believed that TiVo had no basis, that Echostar came up with their own technology that did not infringe, and no way in heck was he ever going to give in to TiVo's demands. The VOOM deal looks more like a calculated risk of saving big money up front, and possibly having to pay some in the future, but not a 100% chance of having to pay.
If Dish management gets what it things is a reasonable deal from AMC, I bet they take it, and Charlie will not fight it.
"He says the case could be settled as part of a wider programming deal involving Dish Network and AMC Networks."
sounds like more channels to me. would be nice if they came up with a horror channel called say fright hd. i couldn't see them naming it monsters.
sounds like more channels to me. would be nice if they came up with a horror channel called say fright hd. i couldn't see them naming it monsters.
I have never had the VOOM channels, but how were they any different form the channels of today..........how times does TNT or TBS or FX play the same movie time after time during the weekends. I would like to see VOOM for myself, along with AMC, Smithsonian, ESPNU, Disney & ABC Family in HD.
mike123abc said:
As I recall after the Dish settlement TiVo was able to collect another $200M from ATT and was done with ATT, then settled with Microsoft with no money changing hands. I would not characterize those settlements to be "based on the Dish settlement."
As far as whether Charlie is still in a fighting mode these days or not, I don't know, but back before the TiVo settlement, he knew he could win on appeal, but he needed TiVo's DVR technologies, his own workaround simply consumed too much CPU power, the new Hoppers would not have been here today had he had to rely on his own workaround technology.
Maybe history will repeat itself.
How come none of the "analysts" mention a return of any of the VOOM channels ?
Could Dish add some Canadian Voom channels to repair this?
: Dish could make this mess go va va voom (I cannot believe I just typed that--
. If that could happen, the following would be possibilities:eqhd
Oasis TV
radX
HIFI
Rush HD [other places]
I am just thinking it may be possible since stores sell Canadian DVDs of movies since they are also Region 1. Probably will not happen, though...Anyway, the one I would like to see revived is Monsters HD.
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Interesting comment. I owned a 501 early enough to see how silky smooth trick play used to be, and on that very receiver, how jerky and inexact trick play become after the workaround. To this day, my 722's and my 612's are still jerky on ff or rw and inexact when skipping, sometimes going back to the beginning of a recorded program. I cannot believe there is any Tivo IP in any of these older receivers at present. I wish there were!
Could somebody with a Hopper comment on how smooth and precise trick play is? Is it any better than the VIP line? It sure appears to me that Dish sent $500M to Tivo and then did nothing to the firmware of any of their receivers.
If they don't currently have the rights, they just go out an get them. Unless, as I said, another provider has exclusivity.
I was going to say I hope that it is not that Wedding Central channel, but that got canned a little over a year ago.
Well, DVR performance hasn't magically improved overnight with a s/w update ! I also seem to recall the 522 being smoother than the 722k we have now.
I suspect that Dish doesn't have any plans to incorporate the TiVo methods into "old" designs and may only include them in future models (I suppose the Hopper could get it in the future but it was already in development when Dish and TiVo settled, so I'm sure it doesn't have the software).
But people have posted that the skip ahead feature on Hopper works "much better now" and that's what counts!
