JUSTICE FILES ANTITRUST SUIT AGAINST DIRECTV OVER DODGERS BROADCASTS
The Justice Department sued DirecTV and its owner AT&T, charging that it colluded with cable companies operating in the Los Angeles market to ensure that none of them would broadcast Dodgers baseball games in the area. The Dodgers games are carried on Spectrum SportsNet LA, a regional sports network owned jointly by the team and cable operator Time Warner Cable. The network, originally called the Dodgers Channel, bought the rights to show most of the team's games for $8 billion over 25 years, starting in 2014. But when the network tried to get other pay television providers such as DirecTV, Cox Cable and Charter (CHTR), to pay a monthly fee to carry the network, all of them refused.