• Mediaweek, Thursday, February 1, 2007 11:30 AM

Time could soon run out for Court TV, as the channel faces a deadline that could permanently shut out of EchoStar's DISH Network lineup. In a series of comments at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen says he might pull Court TV off the DISH Net menu for good if a new carriage deal is not worked out by Feb. 1.

Both sides say there has been no change in Court TV's carriage status, but neither company would confirm if negotiations were actually going on. Ergen doesn't usually wait once he decides to pull a network. When Court TV's contract expired on Jan. 1, it went black in DISH households minutes after midnight.

Since then, Court TV has lost nearly 13% of its subscriber base, dropping from almost 88 million to about 76 million. But it hasn't suffered a ratings slide and actually posted its most-watched month in its 15-year history, delivering 1.16 million total viewers in prime time, an increase of 21% over January 2006.

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