Yesterday, millions of DirecTV customers lost access to Disney-owned ESPN, ABC and other sports channels after the two parties could not come to an agreement on a new licensing deal.
The pre-existing agreement between Disney and DirecTV expired yesterday, meaning that up to 11 million satellite subscribers went dark on sports channels owned by the conglomerate.
The outage also led to other networks such as FX and National Geographic being removed from DirecTV. This comes at a pivotal time for sports broadcasting in the US as the college football season kicked off last weekend, with the NFL season starting this week.
Rob Thun, Chief Content Officer at DIRECTV, commented: “The Walt Disney Co. is once again refusing any accountability to consumers, distribution partners, and now the American judicial system.
“Disney is in the business of creating alternate realities, but this is the real world where we believe you earn your way and must answer for your own actions. They want to continue to chase maximum profits and dominant control at the expense of consumers – making it harder for them to select the shows and sports they want at a reasonable price.
“Consumer frustration is at an all-time high as Disney shifts its best producers, most innovative shows, top teams, conferences, and entire leagues to their direct-to-consumer services while making customers pay more than once for the same programming on multiple Disney platforms. Disney’s only magic is forcing prices to go up while simultaneously making its content disappear.”
According to sources at CNN, Disney had offered DirecTV a package that included ESPN and ABC along with an offering of selected Disney linear channels and direct-to-consumer services.
Negotiations reportedly stalled after a Disney spokesperson revealed that DirecTV had been asking for “unreasonable” discounts. However, DirecTV retorted these claims stating that Disney was seeking to waive any future legal claims, accusing the conglomerate entity of anti-competitive practices.
It is also worth noting that Disney’s joint venture with FOX and Warner Bros Discovery on the sports streaming service Venu Sports, which was temporarily blocked by a US judge after FuboTV accused the three companies of similar anti-competitive violations.
DirecTV has been seeking a new agreement with Disney in which they believe will “return to pay TV consumers by providing the same flexibility that Disney affords itself with access to quality content across both linear and direct-to-consumer”.
Lower-priced packages and a range of content geared towards children and families are also central to DirecTV’s plans.
In a company statement, DirecTV stated: “As DIRECTV has done for 30 years, the company will continue to find and deliver the best content from programmers and bring it all together for customers in a simple and seamless experience – linear alongside direct-to-consumer – to watch and discover the news, shows, sports they want to watch at the right value.”
