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EchoStar's Dish Network, the second largest US satellite broadcast service, has been battling Viacom -- which owns CBS, MTV and other channels -- over how much is paid for the right to carry certain channels.
EchoStar said in a statement that Viacom's "demands for rate increases and other terms had left EchoStar's Dish Network satellite TV service with no choice other than to remove 16 of Viacom's owned-and-operated CBS local stations and 10 of its nationally distributed channels."
The statement said that "among Viacom's strong-arm tactics is the demand that Dish Network carry Viacom-owned channels of little or no measurable appeal to viewers in exchange for the rights to carry the 16 owned-and-operated CBS stations."
It added that Viacom threatened to withhold the Super Bowl during the dispute until a federal judge intervened in an antitrust suit, but the terms of that order expired Monday.
Viacom said it was "dismayed" by the decision to pull the plug on the channels, which include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and others.
"It is hard for us to make sense of their position," Viacom said.
"They recently hiked their subscribers' bills by as much as three dollars a month. Yet they are unwilling to consider paying an additional six cents a month per subscriber for the right to carry our channels. Our networks are some of the most popular on television and when Americans watch TV, they spend more than 20 percent of their time with our networks."
EchoStar said the dispute covers 1.6 million of its nine million US customers. It said Viacom was using CBS, which is transmitted over public airwaves, in an effort to gain leverage in the dispute.
"Dish Network customers in the cities with CBS owned-and-operated stations are entitled to keep up with local news and events distributed over publicly owned airwaves, and Viacom is interfering with that right," said Charles Ergen, chairman and chief executive officer of EchoStar.
"Dish Network will always have a place for CBS and we're willing to pay for retransmission rights, but Viacom is holding the public airwaves hostage, trying to extract concessions and higher rates on programming unrelated to
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