GLOBAL – UNITED STATES, SEPTEMBER 17, 2012 – The United States’ biggest television networks – CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC – recently filed a lawsuit against broadcast satellite provider Dish Network to stop its ad-skipping feature called ‘AutoHop’.
Introduced this spring, Dish’s digital video recorder Hopper with the AutoHop feature can record select primetime shows on TV for eight days after airtime without advertisements. The networks are enraged about its potential adverse effects on advertising, TV’s principal source of revenue. This also violates Dish’s contracts with the networks concerning copyrights and rebroadcasting.
Dish argues that AutoHop does not delete commercials but only allows its users to “fast forward” through the programs. Dish has also stated that the audience have a right to control their TV viewing experience.
The disputes with CBS, Fox and NBC will be heard in Los Angeles, California, while the complaint by ABC will push through at New York.
The Consumer Electronics Association, standards and trade organization for the consumer electronics industry in the US, has called AutoHop a “pro-consumer advancement”, referring to the successes of Betamax and TiVo’s cases.
Towards the end of July, changes have been made to AutoHop: subscribers now manually choose which networks they want recorded, they can also choose when to delete programming from the hard drive and the “no” box is ticked as default option to skipping ads.
