F.C.C. Blocks EchoStar Deal With

F.C.C. Blocks EchoStar Deal With DirecTV. This article from the NY Times is actually old news left over from Friday, but interesting to those of us who use DirecTV, Tivo and HDTV. I'm all for competition in the satellite TV industry, but this news is potentially bad for those of us looking for the availability of more HDTV programming on two fronts: First off, the pairing of EchoStar and DirecTV would have given that combined company enough satellite capacity to offer many, many more HDTV channels than either one can possibly deliver today. Secondly, if this deal is off, all signs point to DirecTV being acquired by News Corp., who -- through their actions (or rather inactions) with their Fox network -- have shown no inclination to produce or broadcast true HDTV programming.