In the Courts: Circle City, NABOB Sue DISH Claiming Racial Discrimination

摘要

Minority-owned broadcaster Circle City and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters filed a lawsuit Monday against DISH that accuses the satellite provider of racial discrimination. DISH did not respond to requests for comment by deadline. The challenge, filed in an Indiana federal court, claims DISH has refused to negotiate a retrans contract in a non-discriminatory manner with Circle City. Circle City was formed last year by DuJuan McCoy to buy WISH-TV and WNDY-TV in Indianapolis from Nexstar for $42.5mln. McCoy sold his Bayou City Broadcasting in a $165mln stock transaction to Byron Allen in May. The road to retrans deals has been a bit rocky for Circle City. AT&T U-verse and DirecTV customers lost the two Indianapolis stations on Jan 31 and they remain off today. DISH hasn’t had the channels since Oct 4. Circle City said it was able to secure long-term deals with other distributors, like Comcast and Charter, during the transition subsequent to the sale. Circle City and NABOB claim DISH has “decades long policies and practices of discriminating against minority-owned broadcasters and historically disadvantaged business,” declaring that DISH is the only MVPD in America that does not carry “black focused channel Urban One, owned and operated by the largest black radio group in America” (presumably they meant Urban One’s cable network TV One, which DISH doesn’t carry). Last fall, Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins had a phone conversation with FCC chmn Ajit Pai in which he urged the FCC to consider DISH’s track record in the area of diversity as it considered the T-Mobile/Sprint merger and the divestiture of Boost Mobile to Sprint. In its lawsuit, Circle City claims that DISH offered to pay “only a tiny fraction of the fees believed to have been paid to Nexstar, and refused to negotiate with Circle City for a fair price.” Circle City told the court it has maintained the same content and quality that Nexstar had, and added value by producing more local news, high school sports coverage, and adding reporters covering the multicultural and medical beats. “Dish’s approach to Circle City reflected its bias against the race of Circle City’s owner, Mr. McCoy. Dish offered to contract with Circle City for pennies on the dollar compared to the rates it paid the prior broadcaster, Nexstar. The message to Mr. McCoy from Dish was clear: minority broadcasters need not apply,” the complaint said. Mc- Coy and DISH have tangled before, with Bayou Broadcasting suing DISH over underpayment of retrans fees in 2015 (Bayou said terms were worked out and the case dismissed).