Judge Denies Charter Move to Dismiss Entertainment Studios Complaint

U.S. District Judge George Wu in Los Angeles denied Charter's motion to dismiss the second amended complaint brought by Entertainment Studios (ES) and the National Association of African American Owned Media, in a ruling Friday (in Pacer, docket 16-cv-00609). Charter is accused of racial animus in opting not to carry ES. Charter emailed us Monday it's "disappointed by the ruling and stand[s] by our position that race played no role whatsoever in our programming decision regarding these networks and we will continue to vigorously defend against these false claims.” It said carriage decisions "are based on business considerations, such as cost, quality, uniqueness of content, and customer demand."