Judge Sides With DirecTV in Cable Dispute

DirecTV came out on top Wednesday in a court battle over what it can claim in a TV commercial about its HDTV capabilities. A U.S. District Court judge in New York refused to grant an injunction to Time Warner Cable that would have pulled an ad that claims the satellite provider will soon have “three times more HD capacity than cable,” Multichannel News reported.

The injunction was sought in addition to a lawsuit, filed in February, which alleged that DirecTV is falsely advertising the strength of its HDTV package, by claiming to offer more channels than what is actually available. Judge Laura Taylor Swain found that there was not sufficient evidence to justify the pulling of the ad. The larger lawsuit, however, remains pending.

The commercial in question is a spot in which actor Christopher Lloyd, reprising his Dr. Emmett Brown character from the “Back to the Future” films, mentions that he forgot to tell Marty McFly that in the future, “[DirecTV will] have three times more HD capacity than cable.”