AT & T's WarnerMedia accuses the DOJ of having "collaborated" with Dish in a dispute with HBO

(Reuters) – WarnerMedia, of AT & T Inc., has accused the US Department of Justice of "collaborating" with Dish Network Corp. in a controversial dispute over the transport of HBO and Cinemax.

For the first time in 40 years of existence, Warner Media's HBO, known for its award-winning television series "Game of Thrones" and "The Sopranos", went extinct on Thursday on the satellite TV service of Dish after a dispute over a new distribution agreement. .

About 2.5 million of Dish's 13 million subscribers subscribe to HBO or Cinemax, according to a person familiar with the subject. AT & T also owns DirecTV, a competitor of Dish TV in satellite TV.

WarnerMedia said it had offered to extend the contract to continue discussions on a new deal, but Dish's executives refused to negotiate further.

"Dish's proposals and actions have made it clear that they never intended to seriously negotiate an agreement," said Simon Sutton, HBO President and Chief Revenue Officer.

The dispute could be a blow to public relations for AT & T, which will resume its place before the court in December when the arguments will be heard in the appeal filed by the Ministry of Justice against the antitrust decision approving the agreement. $ 85 billion from the No. 2 mobile operator in the United States.

"This behavior, unfortunately, is what the Department of Justice predicted as a result of the merger," said a DOJ representative. "We hope the Court of Appeal will correct the mistakes of the district court."

The statement from the Justice Ministry was supplemented by the tweet of Fox Business Network reporter Charlie Gasparino.

AT & T said, "The Justice Department worked closely with Dish on its unsuccessful lawsuit to block our merger," a spokesman for WarnerMedia said in a statement. "This collaboration continues with Dish's tactical decision to abandon HBO, not the other way around. The Department of Justice failed to prove its claims on HBO during the trial, and then dropped them on appeal. "

Dish declined to comment on the charge.

"The merger has created tremendous consumer power for AT & T," said Andy LeCuyer, senior vice president of programming at DISH, in a statement. "It looks like AT & T is implementing a new strategy to remove recently acquired content from other distributors."

Dish testified against the deal in March, saying that the deal made by AT & T at the conclusion of the deal was not strong enough to protect its competitors. AT & T has proposed to submit for seven years to third party arbitration any disagreement with the distributors on the pricing of Time Warner's networks and to commit to not obscure the programming during the arbitration.