Court Dismisses Sky Angel Suit Against C-SPAN

A District Court dismissed over-the-top video provider Sky Angel's antitrust suit against C-SPAN, the cable industry funded public affairs network, but it did so without prejudice and signaled that Sky Angel could re-file its complaint.

"We are delighted with the District Court's dismissal of Sky Angel's antitrust lawsuit against C-SPAN," said Bruce Collins, C-SPAN VP and general counsel. "As we said from the beginning, and the judge has obviously agreed, Sky Angel did not have any facts to back up its fanciful claims. C-SPAN now looks forward to continuing its public service mission without this distraction." Sky Angel filed an antitrust suit against C-SPAN in November 2012, saying the public affairs net improperly withdrew its programming from the program distributor in 2009 at the direction of a board made up of cable operators who dominated the video distribution market and colluded to competitively disadvantage competitor Sky Angel. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed that charge, saying Sky Angel had provided no factual context for the alleged board member agreement.