DISH Sued by Starz, Disney

ENGLEWOOD: DISH Network is being sued by both The Walt Disney Company and Starz over the platform’s provision of the premium network to its subscribers for free.

DISH earlier this year offered its 14.1 million subs a free one-year subscription to the premium network Starz as part of its 30th anniversary celebration. According to reports, the suit filed by Starz in a Denver court asserts that its contract with DISH does not allow the platform "to simply give away its channels and content to its entire subscriber base." The suit also claims, "It is obvious that DISH decided to give away Starz’s content and channels in order to preempt and ameliorate complaints about its subscriber-wide increases in rates."

In a separate suit filed in New York, Disney said that DISH’s free Starz offer impacts the value of its movies and hurts its programming supply relationships with other networks and platforms. DISH’s response, according to the L.A. Times, notes that it "pays hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to distribute Starz content to our customers, which includes the rights to a number of Disney movies, and our current distribution of Disney content on Starz is permitted under our contract with Starz."