Hearing Scheduled in $10 Billion AT&T/DirecTV Carriage Discrimination Case

A federal judge will hear arguments Sept. 18 on a motion by AT&T and DirecTV to have a $10 billion civil lawsuit claiming racial discrimination in program carriage and contracting decisions dismissed. African-American owned Entertainment Studios Networks and the National Association of African-American Owned Media sued the companies in 2014 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleging racial animus behind the decision to carry only ESN's Justice Central channel (see 1412040060) -- for example, paying no license fees for the content but instead charging ESN to carry it. ESN and NAAAOM similarly sued Comcast and Time Warner Cable earlier this year, making similar charges, though that suit was dismissed earlier this month (see 1508100017) and those companies ended their deal unlike AT&T and DirecTV, which have combined in the suit. "This is a commercial disagreement, not a discrimination case, which explains why [ESN's and NAAAOM's] complaint is so bereft of any facts that could state such a claim," AT&T and DirecTV said as part of their motion to dismiss filed in July. AT&T's argument to have the suit dismissed "prematurely raises the question of whether [it] has a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for its refusal to contract with ESN," the programmer and NAAAOM said Friday in a filing in opposition to the motion to dismiss, adding that at trial they "will prove that AT&T's purported reasons for refusing to contract are pretextual excuses for discrimination." The hearing will be before U.S. District Judge Patrick Walsh.