Expanded Basic. Choice. Choice Plus. Cable and satellite TV customers pay monthly fees for bundled channel packages of different sizes. The packages are becoming “skinnier,” allowing you to customize your service from a set of modules (i.e., the Family package, the Sports package, various language packages, etc.). But each module is still a pre-set bundle of channels.
In the meantime, class action lawyers have launched a series of cases to try to “break the bundle.” Antitrust attacks have had middling results. See e.g., Brantley and Cablevision. And now the Eighth Circuit has decisively rejected claims that bundled monthly services contracts are “illusory” or include an implicit guarantee to consistently provide the same channel lineup.
In Stokes v. DISH Network, LLC, customers brought a class action against DISH after Turner and FOX News channels went “dark” on DISH for about a month each during 2014-2015 license disputes. The customers argued that they had paid for the advertised bundle and, therefore, either (i) DISH was required to credit customers for the missing pieces of the bundle or (ii) the entire monthly service for fee contract was based on an illusory promise and, therefore, unenforceable.