Disney and DirecTV are in a major dispute, meaning millions of homes have now lost access to several Disney channels, including ABC and ESPN.
The channels went dark on Sunday, September 1, after the previous carriage deal between Disney and DirecTV expired without the terms of a new contract being worked out. This comes in the middle of the US Open tennis tournament and just a week before the NFL season kicks off.
Both companies have released statements regarding the blackout, with Rob Thun, chief content officer at DirecTV, saying, “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,” Thun added. “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.”
Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, Co-Chairmen, Disney Entertainment, and Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN, released a joint statement of their own, writing, “DirecTV chose to deny millions of subscribers access to our content just as we head into the final week of the US Open and gear up for college football and the opening of the NFL season.”
The statement continued, “While we’re open to offering DirecTV flexibility and terms which we’ve extended to other distributors, we will not enter into an agreement that undervalues our portfolio of television channels and programs. We invest significantly to deliver the No. 1 brands in entertainment, news and sports because that’s what our viewers expect and deserve.”
“We urge DirecTV to do what’s in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming,” the statement concluded.
This latest dispute comes a year after Disney and Charter Spectrum came to a standstill over new contract terms. At the time, Charter Spectrum subscribers lost access to Disney’s channels for two weeks until the two sides eventually cut a deal that made Disney+ and ESPN+ available at no extra cost to customers.
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Thun had hinted at the dispute last month when he released an open letter, writing (per The Hollywood Reporter), “Distributors like DirecTV have asked programmers for the flexibility to launch skinnier packages for years. It is high time that we work together to bring that ocean of opportunity to fruition.”
In response to the letter, Disney’s president of distribution Justin Connolly told THR, “I think, or I know, that they are trying to spin and push this narrative that they want to explore more flexible, skinnier bundles and that we refuse to engage on that, and bottom line: That is blatantly false, and we’ve been negotiating with them for weeks, and we proposed a variety of flexible options… but yet they haven’t engaged with us on the options.”
“They just continue to sort of spin, both publicly but also in the room, a little bit on these ideas that don’t have a lot of specificity to them, and, you know, from our perspective, don’t feel like they can be executed easily,” Connolly added. “That continues to be a challenge.”
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