March 20 (Reuters) - A judge in Manhattan has dismissed

a lawsuit by satellite television provider DirecTV accusing

Nexstar Media ( NXST ) and two other television station owners of

scheming to drive up retransmission fees for distributing

content to viewers.

U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan federal court

ruled on Wednesday that DirecTV's lawsuit was "speculative" and

that the company could not tie any losses it suffered to the

alleged antitrust conspiracy.

Companies like DirecTV pay retransmission fees to station

owners such as Nextstar, the country's largest owner or operator

of television stations, in order to distribute their

programming.

DirecTV said in its lawsuit last year that Nexstar and

station owners Mission Broadcasting and White Knight

Broadcasting violated antitrust law by depriving it "of a fair

competitive process that has resulted in higher prices being

demanded of it and lost profits."

DirecTV in a statement said the court's ruling "sets a

dangerous precedent that a victim of price-fixing needs to pay

the inflated price before it can make a claim in court."

Mission Broadcasting said "we look forward to resuming talks

with DirecTV to restore our local television stations to the DTV

platforms." Nextstar and White Knight were not immediately

reached for comment.

The defendants had denied any wrongdoing.

Nextstar, Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting

own television stations that are affiliated with ABC, CBS, Fox

and NBC. Nexstar previously owned Mission and White Knight's

stations.

Twenty-seven stations owned by Mission and White Knight

became unavailable in 2022 for DirecTV customers after it failed

to agree on retransmission fees. DirecTV claimed it lost

subscribers because of the blackouts.

DirecTV, which is 70% owned by AT&T, never paid the

allegedly inflated retransmission fees by Mission Broadcasting

and White Knight Broadcasting, Castel wrote, because it "made

the unilateral decision to abandon" the negotiations.

Castel said DirecTV's "losses therefore flow from its own

choice to exit the market."

DirecTV had contended that its lost profits were enough to

sustain its claim that it suffered an injury under antitrust

law.

The case is DirecTV LLC v. Nextstar Media Group Inc et al,

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No.

1:23-cv-02221-PAC.

Read more:

DirecTV sues Nexstar, station owners over retransmission

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