The Movie Channel - Carriage Issues

Carriage Issues

• In May 1994, now-defunct cable provider Tele-Communications Inc. dropped The Movie Channel from more than 30 the provider's cable systems. This occurred as Viacom was in the middle of an antitrust lawsuit against TCI in which Viacom accused TCI of a "conspiracy to eliminate" the Showtime Networks channels, including The Movie Channel. Viacom accused TCI of using the issue of its affiliation contract, which expired in January 1993, to pressure Viacom into settling its lawsuit against them, in which Viacom stated that TCI threatened to hurt both Showtime and The Movie Channel unless Viacom agreed to acquire a stake in Encore, a channel Viacom claimed to be a concept first made by them four years earlier during failed negotiations that would have had TCI purchase a 50% stake in Showtime Networks. The local TCI systems said that the decision to remove The Movie Channel from their channel lineups were made at the local level and not a company-wide decision.
• Now-defunct satellite provider Primestar never carried The Movie Channel on their service. In January 1999, Primestar announced plans to add The Movie Channel to its service, but shortly thereafter Primestar's assets were sold to Hughes Communications, then-owners of DirecTV.