This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
All channels owned by Disney will be pulled from YouTube TV at 12:00 AM ET on October 31 and 9:00 PM ET on October 30 after the industry giants failed to reach an agreement.
The two parties failed to arrange a carriage deal before their agreed-upon deadline. And, as a result, Disney will be pulling ABC, ESPN, Disney Channel, and Freeform from YouTube TV. With such major channels getting removed from the streaming service, subscribers now have to find alternatives to watch their favorite shows and sports games right in the midst of both college and professional football season.
A spokesperson for Disney expressed the studio’s disappointment regarding the situation. They claimed that YouTube TV wasn’t willing to pay fair wages for its content, so they had no choice but to remove all their channels from the streaming service. “Unfortunately, Google’s YouTube TV has chosen to deny their subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for our channels, including ESPN and ABC.”
Disney assured YouTube TV subscribers that they are just as frustrated with the circumstances and are still willing to work some kind of deal out with the platform. However, for the time being, viewers won’t be able to watch some of the biggest sports lineups this coming weekend.
Disney also criticized Google’s marketing strategies. The company accused them of trying to take advantage of its partners and bypassing traditional industry standards.
Without a new agreement in place, their subscribers will not have access to our programming, which includes the best lineup in live sports — anchored by the NFL, NBA, and college football, with 13 of the top 25 college teams playing this weekend. With a $3 trillion market cap, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor. We know how frustrating this is for YouTube TV subscribers and remain committed to working toward a resolution as quickly as possible.
YouTube TV obviously disagreed with those comments. A representative released a statement providing their stance and condemning Disney for using blackout threats as a negotiating tactic. They claimed that their subscribers are going to suffer because Disney is asking for too much money.
Last week Disney used the threat of a blackout on YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic to force deal terms that would raise prices on our customers. They’re now following through on that threat, suspending their content on YouTube TV. This decision directly harms our subscribers while benefiting their own live TV products, including Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.
There has been no resolution between Disney and YouTube TV’s dispute at the time of this article’s publication. The following channels have been pulled: ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, Freeform, FX, FXX, FXM, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, SEC Network, Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, ABC News Live, ACC Network, Localish; on the Spanish plan, ESPN Deportes, Baby TV Español and Nat Geo Mundo.
More to come…
