The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay a lower-court order that Dish Network must stop offering signals of TV stations to hundreds of thousands of subscribers outside of those stations' home markets. The company lost its bid for an emergency appeal to delay the appeals court ruling. It wanted the stay so that it could continue offering the "distant signals" until the high court decides whether to hear a full appeal. An 11th Circuit panel ruled in May that Dish was illegally providing local TV stations--from broadcasters such as ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox--to at least 630,000 homes from markets …

Not long ago, satellite operators seemed about to beat cable companies for top slot in the pay TV market. But after the top two saw subscriber growth slow to 1990s levels, cable appears to have regained momentum. But does that mean DirecTV and EchoStar will always be niche players serving rural markets out of reach of cable companies? Cable's resurgence comes, in part, from its ability to offer customers a "bundled" package of TV, phone and high-speed Internet service. And most major operators began offering the last piece--Internet-based phone service--two years ago. Neither satellite company offers a nationwide broadband service, …

The Canadian maker of a cold and flu remedy, CV Technologies, is expanding its ties to pro hockey in advance of a U.S. launch this fall. Having already inked Canadian hockey icon Don Cherry and former National Hockey League star Mark Messier as endorsers, the Cold-fX maker will sponsor a monthly NHL player award and have exclusive marketing rights for major events, such as the Stanley Cup playoffs, the all-star game, the entry draft and the NHL awards show. Cold-fX has successfully utilized hockey as a platform to build its business in Canada," says Ed Horne, president of NHL Enterprises. …

Time Warner Cable is going to have to fight City Hall, reports the Los Angeles Times. As the largest media company in the world battles pro football over carriage of the NFL Network, the Los Angeles City Council is on the latter's side, as made clear by a recent resolution it passed. The NFL Network wants access to 2 million cable homes in the market; Time Warner, which owns the system, has kept it out for three years. And when it took over Adelphia and Comcast cable systems, it yanked the channel from customers who were already getting it. The …

Cable operators in Mumbai are blocking all but one TV channel--government-owned Doordarshan--in a protest against a recent raid, NDTV reports. The action happened after the police raided cable operators and came down hard on them for showing adult movies. Acting on what they say is a legitimate court order, cops sealed decoders of the movie channels, including Star Movies and HBO, at the control rooms of several multi-system operators. But Monday evening, cable operators across the city shut down all channels, saying it is impossible and unfair to make them responsible for screening content. "We are obeying the court order. …

"If Lifetime is the network for real women, then Oxygen is fast becoming the network for bad girls," reports Media Life. It has "Talk Sex with Sue Johanson," women's erotica program "Bliss," and last week, Janice Dickinson, the world's first supermodel and arguably the cattiest reality star on TV. But this week, Shannen Doherty--fired from three TV shows in just over a decade--joins the Oxygen lineup with "Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty." The premise is simple: Doherty puts her she-devil self to good use by breaking off bad relationships. She helps men and women break free after the toxic boyfriend, …

This summer has brought a rash of notices of buyouts and layoffs at U.S. newspapers, reports Reuters. And some industry watchers say more will come as ad and circulation dollars dry up. At Belo Corp., the flagship Dallas Morning News wants to cut 85 positions as it prepares to restructure. And the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, owned by privately held Advance Publications Inc., says cutbacks are coming. The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times are also shedding jobs. Nearly all the recent announcements promise "pinpoint reductions rather than deep cuts," Reuters says. And the reason publishers prefer a trickle …

The country's largest brewer is launching an in-house film and TV production company that will make humorous shorts and sitcom-type programs to be broadcast over the Internet and to cell phones. Citing people familiar with the effort, Anheuser-Busch might even branch out into full-length films, says Ad Age. The company has done some content creation before--mostly in sports TV, where it recently produced the National Football League preseason games for the St. Louis Rams. But this new effort is believed to be the brewer's most ambitious yet. Earlier this summer, A-B pulled Jim Schumacher, its vp for creative development, out …

"There have been no multibillion-dollar Murdochian splurges, and no overnight game-changing deals for a MySpace or a YouTube," writes Mediaweek. But over the last year, Viacom's MTV Networks has strung together a series of doubles in the face of News Corp.'s new-media home runs. They include the August 10 acquisition of Atom Entertainment--which specializes in short films and casual gaming--and four other Web purchases since June of last year. Some have criticized the strategy as disjointed, but MTV chief Michael Wolf says every project has been carefully selected: "Each of these fits into an overall plan--building and broadening MTV Networks' …

The departure of ESPN U from the Buffalo area's largest cable system has been lost in a war of words between The NFL Network and Time Warner. And the loss of the college sports channel will be felt even more Aug. 26, when it begins carrying the first of 70 college football games out of 290 carried by all the ESPNs and ABC. Time Warner should find a way to carry ESPN U's coverage of the Syracuse at Illinois game Sept. 16 and the University at Buffalo at Akron game Nov. 9, says The Buffalo News, which wonders why ESPN …