The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has accused DirecTV of orchestrating information sharing with competitors Cox Communications, Charter Communications and AT&T, during negotiations to carry SportsNet LA, which holds exclusive telecast rights to all live Dodgers baseball games in the Los Angeles area.
The DoJ said it will be taking DirecTV to court, as well as parent AT&T. Specifically, the complaint alleges that the four companies pre-agreed which would or would not telecast the Dodgers Channel, and which would or would not carry the channel in the future. The complaint alleges the companies did this in order to obtain bargaining leverage and to reduce the risk that they would lose subscribers if they decided not to carry the channel but a competitor chose to do so.
The DoJ said the collusion and unlawful information sharing contributed to the blackout that deprived many fans from watching the games on TV for the last three seasons. The Dodgers Channel is still not carried by DirecTV, Cox or AT&T.
AT&T noted the events came about before its acquisition of DirecTV but that it sees the facts differently. “The reason why no other major TV provider chose to carry this content was that no one wanted to force all of their customers to pay the inflated prices that Time Warner Cable was demanding for a channel devoted solely to LA Dodgers baseball,” the carrier said. AT&T said it makes its carriage decisions independently, legally and only after thorough negotiations with the content owner and that it looked forward to presenting these facts in court.
