YouTube TV users lose access to Disney and ESPN
- The San Juan Daily Star
- Nov 3
- 2 min read
By FRANCESCA REGALADO and BROOKS BARNES
An estimated 10 million YouTube TV subscribers lost access to ESPN, ABC and other channels owned by Disney last Thursday night after contract-renewal talks collapsed.
Each company publicly blamed the other.
“We continue to urge Disney to work with us constructively to reach a fair agreement,” YouTube said in a statement. In turn, Disney’s statement accused YouTube, which is owned by Google, of “using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”
YouTube TV will offer subscribers a $20 credit if Disney’s content stays blacked out for “an extended period,” the company said. ESPN is the No. 1 cable network on YouTube TV among adult viewers ages 18 to 49, according to Nielsen.
YouTube said Disney’s proposed terms would force it to raise prices, and it noted that removing Disney content from YouTube TV would conveniently benefit Disney’s own streaming services, which include Disney+, Hulu and a new ESPN app.
In part, Disney and other big television companies have sought higher fees for their programming to help offset increasing costs, especially for sports content. Disney is not alone in complaining that contract-renewal talks with YouTube have grown increasingly difficult. Univision’s channels have been dark on YouTube TV for nearly a month.
After heated negotiations, NBCUniversal and Fox reached agreements with YouTube to avoid a similar interruption.
Still, these spats are not uncommon in the television business, which has been roiled by streaming over the past decade. Last year, a similar contract dispute between Disney and DirecTV resulted in a two-week blackout of Disney-owned channels.
Comments