7th Circuit Rejects Racial Discrimination Arguments Against Dish and DirecTV

A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously affirmed lower court rulings that Dish Network and DirecTV didn’t discriminate against Black-owned TV broadcaster Circle City in retransmission consent negotiations (see 2304070046). “No evidence supports the link” between the MVPDs declining to pay Circle City retransmission consent fees and racial discrimination, said the opinion Tuesday (docket 23-1787). Dish and DirecTV paid retransmission consent fees to carry WISH-TV Indianapolis and WNDY-TV Marion, Indiana, for years when Nexstar owned them but ended carriage when Circle City bought the stations in 2019. Both companies made offers to Circle City to carry the stations for no fee, but Circle City’s principal owner, Dujuan McCoy, refused those offers as insufficient. Circle City has argued that the change in fees was due to racial discrimination, but the MVPDs said the difference was due to the disparity in market power between Circle City and Nexstar, the U.S.’s largest broadcaster. The MVPDs “paid Nexstar fees for stations like WISH and WNDY to ensure access to other channels owned by Nexstar for which there existed clear consumer demand,” said Tuesday’s opinion. Once the stations were owned by the smaller company, Dish and DirecTV “had no business need” to pay fees for those stations, the 7th Circuit panel said. Circle City’s argument that the change in fees was due to McCoy’s race “found no backing in evidence and instead rooted itself in conjecture,” said the opinion. “We see nothing in the record pointing to any other conclusion.” Circle City didn’t comment. The panel's judges were Diane Wood, Michael Scudder and John Lee.