DirecTV Takes Fox Spat to FCC

EL SEGUNDO: DirecTV has issued a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its carriage dispute with Fox Networks that accuses the company of running advertisements that are misleading consumers.

Fox began running newspaper ads and TV promotions that warn DirecTV subscribers that Fox channels are about to be pulled off the service. DirecTV has taken issue with the ads because it believes they indicated that all Fox owned-and-operated channels, not just Fox networks and regional sports channels, will be pulled over the dispute. 

"Fox is clearly abusing the public trust by its deliberate attempt to confuse and alarm consumers," DirecTV’s executive VP, Derek Chang, said in his letter to the FCC.

Chang said that although the contract dispute concerns FX, 19 regional sports networks and a smattering of smaller channels—but not Fox News—the News Corp. ads are leading people to think that its Fox broadcast network would also be dropped next week.

"Fox is using misleading advertising informing DirecTV customers that ‘soon, in some markets, you may lose your local Fox station,’” Chang wrote. "Even if the Fox cable channels are no longer carried on Nov. 1, the broadcast stations are covered under a separate agreement, which does not expire until Dec. 31."

The letter continued: "Such conduct is certainly not what the commission had in mind when it made Fox a steward of the nation’s airwaves entrusted to serve the public interest."