Verizon, ESPN Reach Settlement on Pay-TV Channel Packages
May 10 2016 - 12:37PM
Dow Jones News
By Shalini Ramachandran
Verizon Communications Inc. and ESPN said they have reached a
settlement in their yearlong legal dispute over how the sports
network is distributed.
ESPN, which is majority-owned by Walt Disney Co., filed a
lawsuit against Verizon in April 2015 over so-called "Custom TV"
packages that the phone giant's FiOS unit had started selling to
customers. Those packages allowed people to buy a basic set of
channels, including broadcasters and some cable networks, and layer
on tiers of channels in genres like sports and kids. At issue was
that customers could get a basic package of channels that didn't
include ESPN, which the sports network said violated its
contract.
In February, Verizon revamped its base packages to include one
with sports channels like ESPN and one without. A week later, court
proceedings in New York Supreme Court were postponed while the
companies tried to negotiate a settlement.
ESPN has been left out of several channel packages over the
years, and as more people "cut the cord" or downgrade to cheaper
plans, it has experienced subscriber losses that have caught Wall
Street's attention.
Write to Shalini Ramachandran at
shalini.ramachandran@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 10, 2016 12:22 ET (16:22 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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