Despite the fact that there a few more days for EchoStar and cable companies to match DIRECTV’s offer for MLB Extra Innings, the nation’s largest satcaster is now offering the package to its subscribers. On DIRECTV’s website, viewers can now purchase the out-of-market baseball package for $160.

Baseball fans beware - the early bird special expires April 7, after which the price will increase to $200.

DIRECTV said it will offer up to 10 Extra Innings games every week in high-definition for an additional $39. The extra fee bumps the subscription package from a basic tier to the “Super Fan” version. According to the company, the higher-tiered version includes the 10 games in HD, up to eight games on one screen with DIRECTV’s Game Mix channel, and the Strike Zone Channels showing highlights and statistics from live games around the league.

The league rejected an offer last week by cable provider iN Demand because the company failed to match the terms of DIRECTV’s deal. The Senate Commerce Committee will hold another hearing on the programming deal today to discuss its ‘exclusive’ nature.

EchoStar Communications’ DISH Network satellite TV service inked an agreement with Disney’s Buena Vista Video-On-Demand to carry current and cataloged movie titles from the Walt Disney Studios on its VOD platform, DISH On Demand. The new offering will also be available on DISH through its pay-per-view services.

According to DISH officials, the addition of Buena Vista Video-On-Demand allows the satcaster to offer its subs movie content from seven out of nine major Hollywood studios.

DISH Network’s DISH On Demand platform is available of the DISH Player-DVR 508, 510, 522, 625, and the VIP622 DVR receivers. Customers with HD-capable receivers can tune into DISH channel 9467 to order PPV movies in high-def.

Disney’s Buena Vista Video-On-Demand distributes movies domestically from Disney Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Miramax Films.

If you cancel your Dish Network service, beware of the unexpected.

I recently had the most unethical trick pulled on me. I canceled my service, paying what was owed. I was given a confirmation number for the transaction. I was told a shipping box and label would be sent for the receiver to be returned. If not returned within 30 days, I would be billed for it. This was all fair.

Three days after this transaction, I went to my bank account to check the balance online. I was shocked. There was a transaction for $400, taken by Dish Network. I called them. They told me it was for the receiver and I would get it back when they received their receiver.

This is all contrary to what I was told when I closed the account. My phone transaction closing the account was recorded, but they didn’t want to hear it. Oh, and they had no confirmation number for this $400, a transaction I never gave permission for.

The icing on the cake is that I have six debits under $10 that have come in. I now owe $180 in fees for being overdrawn, something that would have never happened if it weren’t for Dish Network.

When I speak with DN customer support staff, I am informed that this is not their problem. They only reassure me that when they get the receiver, they will credit my bank account.

A copy of this letter has been sent to the Better Business Bureau to make them aware of these unethical practices.

News Corp.-owned interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, has been named by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), as its exclusive developer of interactive TV games and enhanced TV applications for the Asia-Pacific region. The companies say that their deal will result in the deployment of interactive content for TBS’s Cartoon Network on a number of Asia-Pacific digital TV platforms. As part of the deal, NDS is supplying TBS with a range of pay-per-play games–the first of which is entitled “Powerpuff Girls Crystal Crisis” (note: the game invites viewers to help the Powerpuff Girls save Townsville from Mojo Jojo by collecting enough crystals to power up a “super-ray-gun”; in order to gather the crystals, the girls must share their powers, so that at least one of them can become airborne: viewers use the remote to collect the crystals and avoid bad guys)–for the Cartoon Network in Australia. The games are being updated on a monthly basis.

The deal also calls for NDS to supply TBS with enhanced TV applications to support its promotional activities. In the latter part of last year, the Cartoon Network’s “Eyeballs3: Triple Play” watch-and-win promotion in Australia included an NDS-built enhanced TV component, dubbed “Red Eye”: viewers were invited to watch the Cartoon Network closely at specified times to spot a series of red eyeballs that appeared briefly on-screen during programs: when they pressed the red button while a red eyeball was on the screen, they were awarded “EyeCodes,” which they could collect in order to win such prizes as a travel voucher, a shopping spree or a home entertainment system. “There will be more exciting new ITV games and promotions coming up as the partnership [between NDS and TBS] grows,” Sue Taylor, VP and general manager of NDS Asia-Pacific, said in a prepared statement.

In other NDS news:

The company says that its end-to-end solutions have been chosen by Tata Sky, an 80:20 joint venture between TATA Group and News Corp.’s STAR Group, for its planned launch of a DTH satellite-TV service in India in mid-2006. NDS’s deal with Tata Sky sees the company supplying the latter with its VideoGuard conditional access technology, which will allow it to offer multiple programming and pricing packages; and with its MediaHighway middleware and its Value@TV interactive infrastructure, which will allow it to offer a range of interactive TV applications. In addition, NDS says, a team of NDS engineers based in Bangalore will play a key role in the design, delivery and service support of the deployment. (Note: in related news: OpenTV announced last month that another Indian satellite-TV provider, Essel Group-owned Dish TV, plans to use its middleware to power ITV services.

The company says that Austria’s largest telecommunications company, Telekom Austria, has chosen its Synamedia secure IPTV and VOD solution and architecture–together with its VideoGuard content protection and DRM technology–to power its new IPTV service, aonDigital TV. The service was launched last year to a base of “friendlies” in Vienna, and is scheduled to be rolled out to a larger customer base in Vienna early this year. Other companies that have deployed NDS’s Synamedia IPTV solution include BBTV in Japan, Sistema in Russia, CYTA in Cyprus, Viasat in Sweden, Auna in Spain and SuperSun in Hong Kong. “Telekom Austria’s choice for NDS solutions was welcomed by all our content partners,” Telekom Austria’s VP of marketing, Stefan Tweraser, said in a prepared statement. “We are very proud of our aonDigital TV service. It offers a good portfolio mix of broadcasting channels, video-on-demand comprising both Hollywood and Austrian-specific content, very interesting features like photo slide shows on the TV set, and much more.”

The end of last week gave players in the multiplatform business their first chance to comment on Liberty Media’s proposed takeover of DIRECTV at the Portals. And among the first to share its opinions was EchoStar, which suggested the Federal Communications Commission should reject the transaction unless “meaningful additional commitments” are added to ensure consumers and rival video distributors are not harmed by the deal.

“At its core, this transaction would only exacerbate problems in the broken video programming market,” EchoStar said in its comments filed with the FCC late Friday. “Liberty Media - and its sister companies affiliated with John Malone - has determined that additional ‘distribution muscle’ of DIRECTV’s national platform is critical to its efforts to expand and enhance its programming assets.

“Thus, the net result of this transaction is that Liberty will rejoin the ranks of vertically integrated major media conglomerates - including News Corp. - that can dictate the terms and conditions of programming … higher price and less choice … to MVPDs and consumers.”

EchoStar called for conditions on the deal, including access and arbitration rights to regional sports networks affiliated with Liberty. An attempt to limit conditions to the three RSNs Liberty Media is gaining through the DIRECTV acquisition should be rejected, the No. 2 DBS company said.

Also, program access protections should apply to all DIRECTV-affiliated programming, and to both domestic and international programming and markets, EchoStar said. In addition, the satcaster said conditions should apply to Liberty Media for at least six years after the close of the transaction.

Meanwhile, the American Cable Association also called for program access rules and non-discrimination conditions as part of the DIRECTV deal, including requirements covering Discovery channels. (Liberty Media has a stake in Discovery.)

And ACA, which represents small, independent cable operators, said the FCC should clarify and strengthen the rights of a collective bargaining agent appointed by independent cable companies for negotiations covering carriage of regional sports networks owned by Liberty/DIRECTV.

A group of music publishers filed a lawsuit against XM Satellite Radio late last week that alleges the company has refused to stop widespread infringement of top copyrighted material. In the complaint filed in a New York federal court, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) charged that the satcaster’s XM+MP3 service dodges copyright laws by allowing subscribers to make permanent copies of satellite-delivered tracks with various handheld devices without the permission of and compensation to rights holders.

Said Debra Wong Yang, the group’s attorney, the service “constitutes pervasive and willful copyright infringement to the overwhelming detriment of copyright holders, legitimate online music services and, ultimately, consumers.”

Despite the 1992 Home Recording Act allowing listeners to record music off the radio for personal use, NMPA brought the suit claiming the devices XM is promoting more resemble audio downloading services like Apple’s iTunes and not traditional recording units. The iTunes service falls under separate copyright licensing regulations, and NMPA said XM’s model is robbing musicians of proper royalties.

NMPA President David Israelite said the group’s legal posturing is a last resort attempt that followed lengthy discussions between the parties over compensation rates. XM officials tagged the lawsuit as a negotiating ploy to gain an unfair advantage in the ongoing discussions for royalty payments.

According to court documents, the music group is seeking an injunction to stop the practice in question with a maximum of $150,000 in damages for each alleged infringement. The lawsuit could end up being one more hurdle in the company’s plans to pull off its $13 billion merger with rival satellite radio provider Sirius.

REGULATORY — Sirius and XM issued a joint statement in regards to the FCC’s adoption of new rules for digital audio broadcasting last week. The companies said the decision “underlines that HD radio on the AM/FM bands provide a real alternative to satellite, and that the current audio entertainment market is broad, robust and competitive.” The companies also said the ruling will stimulate growth among HD radio stations - currently at 1m200 - and establish a process for free radio to offer a paid subscription service.

PROGRAMMING — Next month, the NYC-based Beatles tribute band The Fab Faux will be playing the entire White Album, in sequence, at Los Angeles’ House of Blues Sunset Strip. Being called “the greatest Beatles cover band without the wigs” by Rolling Stone editor David Fricke, the band will perform the album’s 30 songs that were never played live before the real Beatles broke up. In promotion of the live performance, The Fab Faux will appear on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Howard Stern show on March 28 when the band plays a repeat appearance on the show.

MISCELLANY — DIRECTV will present at the Bank of America 2007 Media, Telecommunications and Entertainment Conference on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 3:20 p.m. ET. The presentation will include an update and outlook on the DIRECTV business with a live webcast available at directv.com/investor

France Telecom subsidiary GlobeCast is bolstering its sports programming via a new five-year deal with international sports broadcaster Setanta Sports to distribute six channels through various platforms. The latest agreement between the two companies during their 13-year relationship, the distribution deal will include carriage of the new programming to Sky, Virgin Media, BT Vision and DTT subscribers.

According to the companies, the deal comes on the heals of Setanta breaking Sky Sports’ Premiere League monopoly by winning the rights to two packages which will be broadcast on Setanta Sports 1 when the new season starts in August.

Globecast said its solution for the multichannel offering - including Setanta Sports 1 and 2, Setanta Golf, Rangers TV and Celtic TV - features the creation and management of a personalized multiplex system for the new offering and expansion of Setanta’s existing fiber network.

GlobeCast supplies capacity on the Eurobird satellite at 28.5 degrees east for uplink to the Sky Digital platform. The solution also includes fiber connectivity to Virgin Media, BT Vision and a number of other DTT platforms, the company said. GlobeCast delivers Setanta’s Australian channel and U.S. channel via its WorldTV DTH platform and is the broadcaster’s main provider of occasional use services.

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday moved on issues related to exclusive contracts for the provision of video services in multiple dwelling units, an effort that aims to break cable’s occasional lock on the market.

Specifically, the commission is seeking comment on the use of exclusive contracts in the MDU video provider marketplace and the impact the deals have on video competition. The notice put out by the FCC also tentatively concludes that the agency has authority to regulate exclusive contracts for the provision of video services to MDUs or other real estate developments, especially if the agency finds the contracts may impede competition and impair deployment of video services.

As part of its efforts, the notice seeks comment on what specific steps the commission should take to ensure that exclusive contracts do not unreasonably impede competitive video entry.

“Potential competitors seeking to enter the video marketplace have expressed concerns that the use of exclusive contracts for MDUs are barriers to entry, preventing consumers in MDUs from receiving the benefits of video competition,” said FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Martin also used the proceeding to again attack cable. “All of us here on the commission have expressed concern about rising cable prices and the importance of encouraging greater competition in the delivery of multichannel video programming,” he said.