Dish Tweaks Hopper Ad-Skipping Feature Amid Lawsuit: Report

Dish Network -- which is facing lawsuits from CBS, Fox and NBC over the automatic ad-skipping capabilities built into its Hopper multiroom DVR -- has upgraded the feature to give users more control.

The software update, released in last week, may be designed to bolster its legal defense against the broadcasters by adding new user-controlled recording and deletion functions. The default option for AutoHop now is to not skip ads, so a viewer must actively select to zap the commercials. In addition, Dish's Hopper customers can now select which networks they record with PrimeTime Anytime -- whereas the lineups of all four major networks were automatically recorded -- and can delete recordings at any time (whereas they were previously retained on the DVR for eight days). A Dish spokesman confirmed that the operator distributed software upgrades related to AutoHop but declined to clarify beyond describing them as serving to "enhance consumer choice."