The Washington Post is reporting that EchoStar, parent of Dish Network, isn’t giving up after being dealt a crushing loss this month by the FCC, which rejected EchoStar's $18 billon bid for GM’s DirecTV.

FCC To Nix Echostar DIRECTV Merger In a recently anticipated move, FCC chairman, Michael Powell moved to block the proposed merger between General Motor’s DIRECTV and No. 2 satellite TV provider Echostar, today at a press conference. The stated reason for blocking the merger was FCC concerns about a potential lack of satellite competition, specifically in rural areas. This is despite reports that cable TV makes up nearly 80 percent of the subscriber base for pay TV in the U.S.

Runco Buys Vidikron and Projectavision In a surprising move at the CEDIA 2002 trade show, Runco a leader in the world of high end video, purchased the assets and brand name of one of their biggest competitors – Vidikron along with the name and assets of Projectavision. This comes one week after Harman sold its high end video company, Madrigal Imaging, to Crystal View, the company who has been servicing Vidikron projectors since Vidikron’s exit from the consumer market earlier this year.

Justice Department Frowning on DIRECTV and Echostar Merger Could Mean Setback For DSS HDTV CNN and other news agencies are reporting that staff in the U.S. Justice Department are not in favor of the pending merger of the two top digital satellite TV manufacturers – GM’s DIRECTV and Echostar’s Dish Network. The reason for the lack of support for the merger is reportedly that there are only two competitors in the DSS market and the deal will leave people who can’t get cable or terrestrial TV with only one satellite TV option. Echostar and GM argue that cable TV companies own over 80 percent of the pay TV market and merging is the best way for them to compete.

Harman Sells Madrigal To Vidikron Spin-Off – Crystal View This isn’t the first time Harman, the largest U.S. AV company, has given up on manufacturing home video projectors. Some AV industry analysts say they got screwed by JVC on digital projectors too badly to stay in that market and the CRT projector market (Runco, SIM2 Seleco, Accurate Imaging, Sony, Crystal View and many others) isn’t large enough to merit Madrigal’s R&D, marketing efforts and resourses. Thus they will sell the video portion of their high line products to Crystal View, the company that is picking up, in part, where Vidikron left off.