A federal choose has dismissed the antitrust lawsuit that DirecTV filed towards Nexstar final yr accusing the TV station large of price-fixing in reference to its retransmission consent negotiations with the satellite tv for pc TV platform.

DirecTV’s go well with, filed in New York’s Southern District in March 2023, accused Nexstar of partaking in price-fixing exercise across the retransmission consent charges from MVPDs which have turn out to be a key income for native station homeowners. In his ruling issued March 20, Decide P. Kevin Castel dismissed the submitting, with out prejudice, arguing that DirecTV didn’t endure sufficient vital hurt in its dispute with Nexstar and associated TV station homeowners to warrant an antitrust declare.

“DirecTV’s accidents are too oblique and speculative to confer antitrust standing,” Castel wrote.

In an announcement, DirecTV said by a spokesman, “This ruling units a harmful precedent {that a} sufferer of price-fixing must pay the inflated value earlier than it will possibly make a declare in courtroom.” The satellite tv for pc TV supplier is claimed to be strongly contemplating an attraction.

The case stemmed from the breakdown of negotiations over TV station retransmission consent phrases between DirecTV and stations owned by Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting. Each of these broadcasters are financially affiliated with Nexstar Media Group, which is the nation’s largest operator of TV stations. DirecTV’s lawsuit accused Nexstar of conspiring with Mission and White Knight leaders to demand massive will increase in retrans charges in trade for renewing the contracts that permit DirecTV to hold native broadcast stations. DirecTV argued that Nexstar, Mission and White Knight colluded with the intention to set a brand new flooring value for retrans charges for Nexstar stations when the time got here to resume these retrans contracts with DirecTV.

DirecTV argued that it misplaced clients in Mission and White Knight markets as a result of it may not provide their stations as a part of its channel package deal. Mission owns a number of dozen stations throughout 26 markets within the U.S., together with WPIX-TV New York.

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The 17-page ruling discovered that DirecTV had believable factors in its submitting, however within the massive image, the choose rejected the authorized argument that DirecTV had been harmed by antitrust habits on Nexstar’s half.

“Plaintiff’s principle is as follows: (1) Defendants demanded supracompetitive costs; (2) Plaintiff didn’t renew its retransmission contract; (3) Defendants’ stations had been blacked out on DirecTV; (4) subscribers left DirecTV due to the blackouts leading to misplaced income. This principle is speculative as a result of it depends on two crucial assumptions: that absent Defendants’ collusive calls for the events would have reached an settlement, and that had the events agreed, subscribers wouldn’t have left DirecTV,” the choose wrote. “There is no such thing as a means of figuring out whether or not, and on what phrases, the events would have agreed, and whether or not due to such an settlement, subscribers would have stayed with DirecTV. Additional, Plaintiff’s damage is oblique, as DirecTV didn’t pay increased costs, however claims to have suffered by dropping clients because of the blackouts.”

The ruling cited comparable litigation that town of Oakland introduced in 2018 towards town’s former NFL workforce, the Raiders, accusing the workforce and the league of manipulating the marketplace for NFL groups with the intention to make town pay extra for a brand new stadium. That case was additionally dismissed.

In response to the ruling, a Nexstar spokesman said, “We’ll let the courtroom’s determination converse for itself.”