US cable-television sports broadcaster ESPN has been ordered to pay Dish Network, the pay-television provider, $4.86 million (€3.68 million).
A federal court decided that ESPN had breached a 2005 licensing agreement by allowing rival pay-television operators to pay lower rates for Spanish-language channel ESPN Deportes without offering the same rates to Dish.
However, the court also decided that ESPN was not liable for allowing pay-television operator Comcast to distribute additional packaging tiers without first notifying Dish.
Dish claimed in the case that it was owed more than $152 million by ESPN.
Stanton Dodge, Dish’s general counsel, said that the company would “remain vigilant in our efforts to ensure that programmers honour their contractual commitments.”
A spokeswoman for ESPN said the broadcaster was “gratified” the court had rejected all but one of Dish’s claims.
The current carriage deal between Dish and ESPN expires this year.