EchoStar Brings Lifetime Back To Life

The acrimonious debate between Lifetime and Dish Network is over, restoring two Lifetime channels to the satellite operator's system.

Dish parent EchoStar had said it would permanently replace the flagship Lifetime Television network by Feb. 1 if the parties continued to bicker, but the two sides made peace at the 11th hour. The deal makes Lifetime Television available to about 8.5 million Dish homes and the Lifetime Movie Network--which Dish had said was permanently replaced--to about 4.5 million homes.

The Lifetime channels had been blacked out since Jan. 1 on Dish as part of a dispute over how much Dish would pay Lifetime to carry the channels.

Some behind-the-scenes deal-making between Lifetime and sister company Hearst-Argyle, owner of 28 local stations, appears to have led to the breakthrough (Hearst owns 50 percent of Lifetime and 70 percent of Hearst-Argyle). For years, Lifetime had negotiated carriage deals along with Hearst-Argyle, giving it some added heft in battles with MSOs and satellite operators. But in December, Hearst-Argyle made its own deal with Dish, depriving Lifetime of leverage.

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Then on Tuesday, Hearst-Argyle and Dish agreed to revoke that deal, allowing Lifetime and Hearst-Argyle to become a package. A deal with Dish to carry both followed.

Representatives for Dish and Hearst-Argyle declined comment. A call to Lifetime was not immediately returned.

There were many twists and turns in the dispute between Lifetime and Dish during the last month. Female-oriented Lifetime accused Dish CEO Charlie Ergen of being insensitive to women's issues and launched a campaign to get consumers to switch from Dish to cable or DirecTV. Dish fought back by making a deal with Lifetime competitor Oxygen and offering to make Lifetime Television available to any consumer who wanted it free, but by request only.

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