Entertainment Studios Networks Seeks $10 Billion in Charter Discrimination Suit, Also Targets FCC
Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN) and the National Association of African American-Owned Media (NAAAOM) are seeking $10 billion in damages from Charter Communications, plus an injunction against the FCC to stop "its practice of facilitating sham 'diversity' agreements/MOUs," they said in…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The suit said Charter racially discriminated against African American-owned media companies -- including ESN -- by withholding carriage, despite ESN being carried on a number of other multichannel video programming distributors, including AT&T U-Verse and DirecTV. Those MVPDs now are part of the same company. Pointing to Charter buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, the complaint also said the FCC "works hand-in-hand with these merging television distribution companies to enable and facilitate their civil rights violations." It criticized pledges Charter made to improve its board and employee diversity as part of Charter/TWC/BHN (see 1601150017), calling those pledges "nothing more than a ploy to garner FCC support for and approval of its merger." In a statement Thursday, Charter said the suit "is a desperate tactic that this programmer has used before with other distributors. We will not comment further at this time." ESN and NAAAOM sued Comcast and Time Warner Cable in 2015, making similar allegations; that suit was dismissed (see 1508100017). A similar complaint in 2014 against AT&T was voluntarily dismissed in December. The FCC didn't comment Thursday.