• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, January 17, 2007

The current standoff between Court TV and satellite provider Dish is now in its third week--and shows no signs of an imminent resolution.

Court TV, which had been in 86 million homes, is now believed to be in 75 million. The drop is due to the dispute with Dish, which took it off its service on Jan. 1, after the contract expired. The two parties are not believed to be in any current talks, although behind-the-scenes give and take is standard in carriage negotiations.

The battle over carriage is between Turner Broadcasting and EchoStar, since Turner took control of Court TV last year. The main point of contention appears to be Dish's desire--which may be posturing--to shift Court TV to a programming tier with lesser distribution than its most widely distributed basic package.

Dish has offered to switch Court TV from its less-expensive top 60 package to its top 120 package, which reaches about 75% of its 13 million subscribers.

However, as in all cable negotiation wars, price plays a role.

Dish has said Turner is seeking a 70% increase in rights fees that isn't deserved, based on "ratings performance and value." Turner says Dish is "unwilling to pay us the standard industry rate for the service."

While a 13% drop in distribution (by 11 million) could be a concern for a network looking to maintain its ratings guarantees to advertisers, the lesser reach doesn't appear to be having an effect so far. In fact, data for the first week that Court TV was off Dish shows that household prime-time ratings actually increased significantly compared to its season-to-date average.

A rep for Court TV parent Turner says the network continues to deliver on its ratings guarantees despite the lesser reach, and maintains an open line of communication with its advertisers. In the cable universe, a drop in distribution in the 11 million range is not believed to have a major impact on ratings for a network, save perhaps an ESPN or USA.

Turner networks, such as TNT, TBS, CNN and Court TV, have been running on-air spots encouraging Dish viewers without the network to switch to cable or DirecTV. Dish has not done any national advertising, although it has conducted some direct-marketing efforts informing its customer base about the matter.

Turner may make a deal with the satellite provider that expires at a future date--closer to when its arguably "must-carry" networks, such as TNT and CNN, expire. That arrangement would give it leverage in future negotiations with Dish. Or it could reach a deal for Court TV carriage that boosts rates for some of the other networks.

Dish has a history of taking a hard line in carriage negotiations with networks it apparently believes its users can do without, at least in the short term.

A year ago, Dish dropped Lifetime for a month. That dispute had a level of public acrimony thus far avoided in the Court TV situation.

Lifetime charged EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen with insensitivity to women's issues; it asked consumers to drop the service and switch to another carrier. Dish volleyed back by replacing Lifetime with competitor Oxygen.