ESPN and Disney channels have been blocked on YouTube TV due to a contract dispute
More than 10 million YouTube TV customers lost access to ESPN, ABC and other Walt Disney Co. channels after contract talks collapsed Thursday night in one of the largest streaming TV outages in recent years.
The Disney blackout was scheduled to begin by 9 p.m. Thursday, when “SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt” on ESPN and “9-1-1: Nashville” and “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC will be interrupted.
The two giant TV companies have been wrangling for weeks over carriage fees for Disney Channels, including FX and Disney Jr. And National Geographic. YouTube TV — now one of the largest pay-TV services in the United States — has objected to Disney’s pricing demands, fueling a dispute that has extended beyond Thursday’s deadline for a new deal.
Without an agreement, Google-owned YouTube TV no longer has the legal rights to distribute Disney Channels.
“We know this is a frustrating and disappointing outcome for our subscribers,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. “We continue to urge Disney to work constructively with us to reach a fair agreement that returns their networks to YouTube TV.”
If the outage continues for an “extended period,” YouTube said it will offer subscribers a $20 credit.
The blackout highlights growing tensions in the television industry.
Programming companies, including Disney, have sought to charge higher fees for their channels to help offset the rising cost of sports programming, including NFL and NBA contracts.
But pay-TV providers, such as YouTube, have pushed back, trying to put a stop to it as customers grow weary of ever-rising monthly bills.
They don’t want to lose subscribers to a competing service or have them drop their subscriptions. More than 40 million homes with pay-TV customers cut off service over the past decade, according to industry data.
Disney became the latest TV programmer to claim that Google was throwing its weight into contract negotiations.
People close to the Burbank-based entertainment giant accuse YouTube TV of refusing to pay market rates for popular Disney channels or accept terms accepted by other pay-TV distributors. Disney has struck deals with six other pay-TV companies this year, including the nation’s largest channel distributors, Charter Spectrum and Comcast.
“Unfortunately, Google’s YouTube TV has chosen to deprive its subscribers of the content they value most by refusing to pay fair prices for our channels, including ESPN and ABC,” Disney said in a statement. “Without a new agreement, our subscribers will not be able to access our programming, which includes the best lineup of live sports – anchored by the NFL, NBA, and college football, where 13 of the top 25 college teams are playing this weekend. With a market value of $3 trillion, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undermine the industry standard terms we have successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”
Since August, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp., Comcast’s NBC Universal, and Spanish-language TelevisaUnivision have complained that YouTube TV was trying to use its influence to pressure them for concessions now that YouTube TV is so popular with consumers.
Ultimately, Fox and NBCUniversal negotiated new distribution contracts with Google without their channels going dark.
Univision wasn’t so lucky. Its YouTube TV channels were taken down nearly a month ago.
For its part, YouTube TV claimed that Disney was making unreasonable demands. The San Bruno, California-based platform pointed to recent agreements it reached with NBCUniversal and Fox.
“Last week, Disney used the threat of withholding YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic to impose deal terms that would raise prices on our customers,” YouTube TV said in a statement. “They are now pursuing this threat… This decision directly harms our subscribers while benefiting their live TV products, including Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.”
Both Disney’s Hulu and Fubo compete with YouTube TV by offering many of the same traditional channel packages.
YouTube has alleged that Disney is using a blackout to steer disgruntled YouTube TV customers to the Disney-owned streaming service after the Burbank company lost subscribers who canceled their services following comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s brief late-night commentary last month.
The fraught dealings between the two companies extend beyond negotiations.
Last spring, Justin Connolly, Disney’s former head of distribution, abruptly left to take a similar position at YouTube TV. Connolly spent two decades at Disney and ESPN and helped craft the company’s distribution strategy. Disney filed a lawsuit to block the move, but A.J The judge allowed Connolly to take up his new position – And put it on the other side of the negotiating table.
It is unclear how long the impasse may last.
A separate dispute over distribution fees between Disney and DirecTV last year led to a 13-day outage of Disney channels for customers of the El Segundo-based TV provider. In 2023, another ugly conflict led to Disney Channels being excluded from Charter’s Spectrum service for 10 days.
News and sports fans may quickly notice the absence of their favorite channels.
They could miss college football on ESPN and ABC as well as the “Monday Night Football” game between the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys.
ESPN is scheduled to broadcast the University of Miami-SMU football game on Saturday.
(Jason Allen/Associated Press)
Disney’s ABC stations, including KABC-TV in Los Angeles, and network-affiliated stations across the country will also not be available on YouTube TV.
That means viewers may miss local newscasts like “Jeopardy,” “Wheel of Fortune,” “Good Morning America” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
YouTube TV launched in April 2017 for $35 per month. The channel package now costs $82.99.