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Voom HD case comes to court
By Chris Forrester
The dispute between Echostar’s Charie Ergen and Cablevision’s Dolan family over the long-abandoned Voom HDTV portfolio of channels is about to come to court. Cablevision is suing Echostar for $2.5 billion in damages, arguing that in taking Voom down from its Dish Network the broadcaster breached a binding contract between the two parties.
The dispute has created other disagreements in its wake, not least the cutting of Cablevision’s sister company’s AMC bouquet of channels from Dish.
Voom went dark back in 2009 and created a bitter division between the two media giants. Voom originally launched in 2003 and was designed to create a ‘must see’ range of HDTV programming, and which Ergen took on an exclusive basis as far as satellite was concerned.
The agreement between Voom and Dish required Voom to invest $100 million a year on new HDTV programming, but losses were huge. Echostar had the right to terminate the contract if nvestment fell below this $100 million figure. Echostar, in 2007, argued that new programming had fallen below that sum, a point which Cablevision/Voom dispute.
In early 2008 Echostar terminated the agreement, and Voom sued.
There’s also an argument that Echostar has deliberately destroyed emails and other documentation relating to the case, which has already upset Judge Richard Lowe III, and thus in the eyes of many observers putting Echostar on a distinct back foot as far as this case is concerned.
By Chris Forrester
The dispute between Echostar’s Charie Ergen and Cablevision’s Dolan family over the long-abandoned Voom HDTV portfolio of channels is about to come to court. Cablevision is suing Echostar for $2.5 billion in damages, arguing that in taking Voom down from its Dish Network the broadcaster breached a binding contract between the two parties.
The dispute has created other disagreements in its wake, not least the cutting of Cablevision’s sister company’s AMC bouquet of channels from Dish.
Voom went dark back in 2009 and created a bitter division between the two media giants. Voom originally launched in 2003 and was designed to create a ‘must see’ range of HDTV programming, and which Ergen took on an exclusive basis as far as satellite was concerned.
The agreement between Voom and Dish required Voom to invest $100 million a year on new HDTV programming, but losses were huge. Echostar had the right to terminate the contract if nvestment fell below this $100 million figure. Echostar, in 2007, argued that new programming had fallen below that sum, a point which Cablevision/Voom dispute.
In early 2008 Echostar terminated the agreement, and Voom sued.
There’s also an argument that Echostar has deliberately destroyed emails and other documentation relating to the case, which has already upset Judge Richard Lowe III, and thus in the eyes of many observers putting Echostar on a distinct back foot as far as this case is concerned.