4th Circuit Upholds Discovery Termination of Sky Angel Agreement

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's 2016 ruling rejecting Sky Angel's complaint that Discovery Communications and its Animal Planet improperly terminated affiliation agreement (see 1609120042). The docket 16-2050 decision issued Thursday by Judges Albert Diaz, Dennis Shedd and Harvie Wilkinson in Richmond, Virginia, and penned by Diaz, said contractual language between the parties was so broad as to make the contract itself unclear, and the lack of definition of areas like "high-speed data connection" doesn't mean Sky Angel can use any type of such connection. It said contract language was vague, but granting Sky Angel distribution rights would have gone against Discovery's policy of prohibiting distribution of linear programming over the public internet. Sky Angel counsel didn't comment. Oral argument was in December.