PINGING THE LIST-VOOM vs DISH update.
Voom: Dish Exit Will Cost Us $1 Billion
The high-def programmer amends its complaint against the satcaster.
By Swanni
Washington, D.C. (June 3, 2008) — Voom is now claiming that it will suffer $1 billion in damages due to Dish Network’s decision to pull its 15 high-def channels from its lineup.
That’s according to an article by Multichannel News.
Dish Network last month decided to drop Voom’s 15 high-def channels after it claimed that the programmer had failed to live up to its carriage agreement. The satcaster said Voom has not make the financial investment in the 15 channels as promised in the agreement.
However, Voom denied the charge and decided last January to file suit against Dish seeking “substantial” damages. Without Dish, Cablevision is the only TV provider that now carries Voom, which leaves the programmer’s future in jeopardy.
In an amended complaint, Voom charges that Dish purposely made “baseless” charges against it so it could violate the carriage agreement, according to Multichannel News. Dish was paying Voom $3.25 per month for each subscriber.
“EchoStar had no right to terminate the affiliation agreement on the basis of a trumped-up and pretextual claim of breach simply because it no longer liked the deal it struck,” Voom stated in the new complaint, Multichannel News reports. “Unable to prevent EchoStar from ‘pulling the plug’ on Voom, Voom HD now has been forced to bring this suit for breach of contract to recover well in excess of $1 billion of damages that it will suffer as a result of EchoStar’s wrongful and improper termination.”
Voom said that Dish had 1.3 million HD subscribers at the end of 2007 and that the satcaster’s high-def audience is expected to reach more than 11 million by the end of the carriage agreement. With those numbers, Voom said it would turn a profit by next year and “generate billions of dollars in revenue over the life of the affiliation agreement.”
Multichannel News reports that Dish Network declined to comment on Voom’s new complaint filing.
Voom’s 15-channel lineup includes special niche networks such as Monsters HD (horror films), Rush HD (music) and Equator HD (nature programs).
I wonder if DirecTV will pick up VOOM.
Thanks for the update on the Voom kerfluffle. I’m waiting for another month or two to see if Dish decides to restore Voom; if not, I’m switching to Direct, if for no other reason than the manner in which Dish stripped some of my favorite HD channels without notice and without commensurately reducing my bill for the reduced service.