EchoStar Ad Complaint Referred to FTC

The Council of Better Business Bureaus has referred a Time Warner complaint against EchoStar's advertising to the Federal Trade Commission.

Last week, the bureau announced that Echostar's marketing company, The Elephant Group, had been asked to correct some ad claims for the satellite broadcaster and had agreed to some and questioned others.

But both Elephant and EchoStar were required to assist in the investigation, and EchoStar didn't, says the National Advertising Division of the council.

NAD claimed it had made "repeated attempts" to get EchoStar's cooperation in investigating the challenge to claims about price and service in its ad campaigns, but "the company did not respond."

NAD has no enforcement authority beyond asking for changes in campaigns it concludes were not in compliance with industry guidelines or sometimes referring to the FCC those who do not comply with their recommendations, or don't cooperate with the investigation, as was the case with EchoStar, NAD says.

An EchoStar spokeswoman was not available for comment at press time.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.