By: Amy Maclean
The last programmer with a pending lawsuit against Charter over its attempts to use Time Warner Cable’s rate card has agreed to dismiss its case. On Friday, Univision and Charter informed the court of their intent to dismiss claims against one another. The two have a settlement, but details are unknown at this time.
Univision filed the suit in July 2016, with the two companies disagreeing over whether Charter could use the more favorable terms of Time Warner Cable’s contract with the programmer or if it had to renegotiate a deal since its contract expired June 30, 2016.
All of this came about following Charter’s completion of its acquisition of TWC in May 2016. Univision was the first programmer to file such a case, with Showtime and Fox News soon filing similar complaints. Those cases were settled months ago, while the Univision dispute continued on. The Univision spat was the only one to result in a channel blackout for Charter, with the MSO losing Univision, El Rey and other content for about a day in February before a judge stepped in and granted a temporary restraining order that returned the programming. The two later agreed to keep Univision networks on Charter as motions on summary judgment made their way through the proper legal channels.
The Spanish-language programmer just went through a month-long blackout with Verizon. The networks returned to Fios in mid-November after a new agreement was settled on. Last year, Univision channels were dark on U-verse for about two weeks. Currently, DISH is suing the programmer over its decision to broadcast last season’s Liga MX games in English on Facebook Live, claiming it violated its affiliate agreement. Univision Deportes carries the same matches, but in Spanish. Univision has wrapped several carriage deals in recent months, announcing a new pact Friday with Frontier.
Source: Cablefax
