Dish Sued Over Retransmission Consent License Fees

Dish has been underpaying what it owes in retransmission license fees, a "deliberate and systemic" practice within the direct broadcast satellite company, Bayou City Broadcasting said in a suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver. Bayou claims Dish paid it far less than it should have in subscriber retransmission fees that were owed in late December through late February. Dish calculated the number of subscribers authorized to receive Bayou City's WEVV-TV Evansville, Indiana, using numbers from when WEVV-TV was temporarily blacked out in a retrans consent fight, and it also unilaterally prorated the payments to Bayou City, the broadcaster said. A 2012 decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a similar case points to this being regular Dish practice, Bayou City said. The suit doesn't specify dollar damages but says the amount, not counting interest and costs, exceeds $75,000. Dish didn't comment.