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Dish Network Corp. filed a lawsuit against Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal on Tuesday, claiming that the TV networks owner breached its contract with the satellite operator.

The suit, filed in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois's Eastern Division, alleges that NBCUniversal violated its contract with Dish by running ads and sending tweets about the coming expiration of its carriage deal. The two sides have been in negotiations about a renewal on Dish that would span NBC and Telemundo broadcast stations and cable channels including USA, Syfy, Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC.

The satellite provider said Tuesday that it expects to file for third-party arbitration, which could prevent NBC from pulling its programming feeds if the two don't reach a deal. Dish claimed that under the 2011 deal Comcast struck with the government to buy control of NBCUniversal, NBC is "forbidden from blacking out its networks" if a pay-TV provider were to opt for binding arbitration.

Dish said NBCU has been telling its subscribers that the satellite operator may soon drop some of its channels, including Bravo, Telemundo and USA. Dish included in the lawsuit several pictures of ads on television screens and messages from NBCU-related Twitter accounts that warn subscribers of an impending drop.

Dish said its contract with NBCU only allows for such messaging within 72 hours of a contract expiration, but NBCU started publicizing a potential spat around Monday, March 14. Dish said the agreement is set to expire more than 72 hours after Tuesday.

As a result of those messages, Dish said that "many subscribers" have called to "ask questions or seek reassurance that the channels will not disappear." Dish said its customer service agents have been overloaded with calls, which increase the company's costs.

Dish asked the court for monetary damages of more than $75,000, including the cost of the suit and any other relief.

An NBCU spokesman had no immediate comment.

Write to Shalini Ramachandran at shalini.ramachandran@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 15, 2016 16:15 ET (20:15 GMT)

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