AT&T Settles Suit Over Refusal to Carry Al Jazeera

AT&T settled a lawsuit over its refusal to carry Al Jazeera Satellite Network’s US cable-news channel on its pay-television service. The accord will allow Al Jazeera America onto AT&T’s U-verse pay-TV service as part of the settlement, said two people familiar with the agreement who asked not to be identified because the terms were private.

The details weren’t outlined in court filings in Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington. The deal underscores the growing importance to TV distributors of programming networks, even new ones such as Al Jazeera America. AT&T and Al Jazeera said in court filings they were dismissing “all claims” and paying their own litigation expenses. The accord doesn’t resolve challenges by Bloomberg News, the New York Times and other media outlets to the refusal by AT&T and Al Jazeera to make public terms of the contract dispute that prompted AT&T to bar the cable channel from debuting on its system.