In September 2019, a five-year agreement that provided retransmission consent revenue to The Walt Disney Company from DirecTV for the carriage of its broadcast and cable television stations was signed. Now, with four days to go before that deal expires, there’s a flurry of industry chatter suggesting both sides are far apart on a new accord.
Thus, come September 1, a “blackout” — by law — of all Disney-owned properties including ESPN and ABC stations could be seen for all DirecTV customers.
The timing of the potential loss of Disney-owned stations comes as the NCAA college football season has already begun, with ESPN coverage of Florida State University’s loss to Georgia Tech live from Dublin, Ireland, shown on the network last weekend.
Then, there is Monday Night Football, which begins September 9.
While there’s plenty of time for an agreement to be signed ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend, speculation abounds as to how a new deal could get signed given key differences in the OTT space compared to fall 2019. For one, Disney is one of the three companies that wish to launch Venu Sports, a OTT platform that Fubo successfully blocked from launching until its litigation against WBD, Disney and FOX concludes in a federal court. Second, OTT bundles that include Hulu and Disney+ could be viewed by DirecTV as a existential threat to its own potential consumer base.
According to Bloomberg, how much DirecTV pays for carriage of ESPN, historically one of the most expensive for an MVPD when it comes to fees, is a key focus of the battle.
The Bloomberg report also suggests DirecTV is considering “skinny bundles” with select ABC/Disney programming options, as a pricing discount opportunity for those who only desire specific genres of Disney-owned channels.
At 1pm Pacific, an ABC representative responded to RBR+TVBR‘s request for comment by sharing it with a Disney corporate representative. That individual declined to comment, directing us to commentary offered late Tuesday by Disney’s president of platform distribution, Justin Connolly, to both Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter.
A DirecTV spokesperson directed RBR+TVBR to an August 21 “open letter” from DirecTV Chief Content Officer Robert Thun. In the piece, he states that, at DirecTV, “[W]e can smoothly transition to a model that will provide consumers with more choice, control, and value to complement programmers’ DTC offerings. 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.”
Meanwhile, the DirecTV spokesperson notes that ABC Owned Stations represent “the smallest owned-and-operated group with only eight stations.”
That said, they include some of the nation’s most-watched local TV stations, and are comprised of:
- WABC-7 in New York
- KABC-7 in Los Angeles
- KGO-7 in San Francisco-Oakland
- WLS-7 in Chicago
- WPVI-6 in Philadelphia
- WTVD-11 in Raleigh-Durham
- KTRK-13 in Houston
- KFSN-30 in Fresno-Visalia-Merced
The new retransmission agreement would all apply to satellite, streaming, and U-verse customers with the exception of New York and Philadelphia, where U-verse is not available.
The last major retransmission consent deal to involve Disney was reached in September 2023. After some 11 days of being prevented from accessing all Disney-owned channels, a fresh retransmission deal between the company and Charter Communications arrived, unblocking the offerings to all Spectrum MVPD customers.
