By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | December 2, 2006
When Gardner resident James Bargnesi woke up yesterday, NBC, Fox, and CBS channels from across the country had disappeared from his satellite dish, disrupting his normal routine. At Satellite Video, a satellite television installation company in White River Junction, Vt., calls began to trickle in from customers upset that they had lost the Manchester, N.H., ABC affiliate that provided their local news.
Yesterday, satellite TV provider Dish Network was ordered to shut off so-called "distant network channels" to an estimated 900,000 of its
12.8 million customers, ending a nine-year legal battle with networks over copyright violations.
Distant network channels are stations beyond the ones offered by a local affiliate. A Florida judge found in October that Dish's practice of offering such service where local stations are available violated the Satellite Home Viewer Act and issued an order to stop Dish from offering them to customers, beginning yesterday .