EchoStar Settles Suit with Stations

ECHOSTAR SETTLES SUIT WITH STATIONS
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Steve Donohue]
EchoStar said Monday morning that it settled a nine-year-old lawsuit with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox affiliate associations that will allow it to continue to deliver distant network signals to subscribers that qualify for the programming. Dish, which had reached similar settlements earlier with hundreds of other TV stations, including ABC, NBC and CBS O&Os, also agreed to pay the affiliate associations $100 million. Only affiliates not owned by News Corp.'s Fox agreed to the settlement. Fox withdrew from negotiations last week. “Fox is still holding out, and as sister company of DirecTV, it's reasonable to guess that they're not in any hurry to sign,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. News Corp. controls EchoStar's larger rival, DirecTV Group.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6366237.html?display=Breaking+News

* EchoStar to pay $100M to settle dispute with networks
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20060829/echostar29.art.htm