Circle City Broadcasting files defamation suit against AT&T
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Circle City Broadcasting, parent company to WISH-TV and MyINDY-TV 23, has filed a defamation suit against AT&T.
The suit, filed in Marion County, comes after CCB filed a federal lawsuit against AT&T for racial discrimination.
The federal lawsuit claims that AT&T is refusing to pay re-transmission fees for WISH-TV and MyINDY-TV 23. The suit claims that fees were paid to the previous owner of the stations, Nexstar Media Group, and that now AT&T has offered nothing to carry the channels.
In a statement regarding the lawsuit, AT&T public relations manager Teresa Mask stated that AT&T “recently completed more extensive agreements with other minority-owned broadcasters including one who recently paid Circle City’s owner $165 million to acquire his former stations.”
The new lawsuit claims that the statement “failed to mention that the ‘minority-owned broadcaster’ specifically referenced in Mask’s statement had sued AT&T for $10 billion in a 2014 race discrimination lawsuit concerning AT&T’s refusal to contract with African-American owned programmers.”
The lawsuit claims that AT&T is trying to portray McCoy as “greedy,” “stealing from the Indianapolis community by demanding such unreasonable compensation from AT&T,” and “a money-grubbing station owner, attempting to extract increased fees from AT&T as a new owner, when that is not true.”
McCoy is requesting “market rate” for carriage of the channels and says “AT&T based its consumer prices on that rate and those prices remain unchanged even though AT&T is no longer paying for the right to distribute content from WISH-TV and WNDY,” according to the suit.
CCB and McCoy are requesting a jury trial.
News 8 has reached out to AT&T for a response to the latest lawsuit.
To contact AT&T/DirecTV, call these numbers:
- 310-964-5006 (press *, then type in T-H-U-N to contact Rob Thun, Senior Vice President of Content and Programming, AT&T Communications)
- 1-800-531-5000
- 1-310-964-5000
- 1-855-802-3473
- 1-800-490-4388