SATELLITE TV WAR COULD BE HEADING TO COURT
By Adnews Staff
Canada's direct-to-home satellite television battle is heating up. Four companies filed for a court injunction this week to stop eight companies from selling DTH satellite dishes. The companies filing the suit are the Canadian pay television networks, Superchannel, Family Channel and The Movie Network, as well as ExpressVu, a Canadian licensed DTH service. The claim alleges that the eight companies are knowingly selling systems that receive unauthorized U.S. programming services. These services provide many programs that have already been exclusively licensed to Canadian film and TV distributors and/or to Canadian pay TV broadcasters to air in Canada. The four companies were successful last month in pressuring RCA Thomson Electronics Canada of Toronto into not selling the dishes. Recently, furniture retailer The Brick stopped selling DTH satellite dishes. The eight companies named in the suit are Price Costco Canada, London Drugs, NII Norsat International, A.C.E Imports International, Base Electronics Corp., A&B Sound Ltd., Jerry's Radio & TV and Hi-Fi 2000.