If this sounds familiar, it's because essentially the same thing happened barely a week ago in a growing dispute over HD between cable and DBS. This time, cable competitor EchoStar told the FCC that cable's In Demand service is attempting to overcharge it for carriage of its HD channels.
Recently, DirecTV had also accused , In Demand of anti-competitive pricing by insisting that the DBS firm compensate In Demand based on the total number of "digital subscribers" (which, technically, is everyone in the DBS universe) instead of based on specific HD subs. Overall, EchoStar has about 11 million subs, compared to far, far fewer HD subs which likely can be counted in the mere hundreds-of-thousands.
INHD, cable's most widely distributed HD-only network, has two channels. In Demand is not commenting on ongoing FCC matters, but EchoStar charges the HD provider has a de facto exclusive agreement to give its programming only to cable operators. In Demand is partly owned by cable's big three: Comcast, Cox and Time Warner.
