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YouTube TV Warns It May Lose All Disney-Owned Channels Amid Contract Dispute (arstechnica.com) 72

Posted by BeauHD from the let's-make-a-deal dept.
YouTube TV yesterday warned that it could lose all Disney-owned channels after Friday because of a contract dispute and said it will temporarily reduce its price by $15 a month if that happens. Ars Technica reports: "We're now in negotiations with Disney to continue distributing their content on YouTube TV so you can continue watching everything from your favorite teams on ESPN to The Bachelor to Good Morning America. Our deal expires on Friday, December 17, and we haven't been able to reach an equitable agreement yet, so we wanted to give you an early heads up so that you can understand your choices," the Google-owned YouTube wrote in a blog post.

"[I]f we are unable to reach a deal by Friday, the Disney-owned channels will no longer be available on YouTube TV and we will decrease our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99 (while this content remains off our platform)," the blog post said. YouTube noted that users can pause or cancel their YouTube TV subscriptions at any time and subscribe to the Disney Bundle for $13.99 a month.

YouTube's statement that it wants "equitable" terms indicates that it is seeking a most-favored-nation (MFN) clause from Disney. "Our ask to Disney, as with all our partners, is to treat YouTube TV like any other TV provider -- by offering us the same rates that services of a similar size pay, across Disney's channels for as long as we carry them. If Disney offers us equitable terms, we'll renew our agreement with them," YouTube wrote. When contacted by Ars, Disney said that the contract is scheduled to expire on Friday at 11:59 pm ET and covers "the ABC Owned Television Stations, the ESPN networks, the Disney channels, Freeform, the FX networks, and the National Geographic channels." In an email to Ars, Disney expressed confidence that the companies can get a deal done: "Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution has a highly successful track record of negotiating such agreements with providers of all types and sizes across the country and is committed to working with Google to reach a fair, market-based agreement. We are optimistic that we can reach a deal and continue to provide their YouTube TV customers with our live sporting events and news coverage, plus kids, family, and general entertainment programming."
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YouTube TV Warns It May Lose All Disney-Owned Channels Amid Contract Dispute More

YouTube TV Warns It May Lose All Disney-Owned Channels Amid Contract Dispute

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  • The intellect of suits. Pirates will be loved. (Score:4, Funny)

    by iamnotx0r ( 7683968 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @05:54PM (#62080841)
    Site A has a few awesome shows.
    Site B has a few awesome shows.
    Site C has a few awesome shows.
    ... etc

    Pirates have them all. Sometimes the cost forces people to pirate. The endless supply of dumb (technology clueless) users is getting smaller.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      The moment the 'classic' movie and TV companies wanted to get their share of the pie and started their own streaming services (some actually good, most incredibly bad), it was only a matter of time before this sort of shit would start to happen.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kellin ( 28417 )

      The streaming services have gotten a little smarter.. T-Mobile has partnered with a few of the services to allow free access so you don't have to pay as much. Currently getting AppleTV and Paramount+ for free. Its actually cut down on my torrenting.

    • Pirating ESPN content is hard because you want to see it live. No one cares about past games.

      • This is primarily the place the market is still rather cornered though often the hugest events are covered better, such as superbowl, world cup, olympics. In the end, I don't really watch any of them because they never seem that easy to access and personally the only one I might miss is Olympics, though world cup can be nice.

      • That's why ESPN Classic died. People just weren't interested in watching a college football game between Oklahoma and Nebraska from 1982.

    • Re:The intellect of suits. Pirates will be loved. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @07:01PM (#62081079) Homepage Journal
      Hunger might force you to steal food. You might be forced to steal clothes. But if one pirates TV it is greed. Nothing wrong with that. Just donâ(TM)t claim that anyone is forced to pirate. Oh, I was forced to steal the car because I had to get to the sale at the mall.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jaa101 ( 627731 )

        Oh, I was forced to steal the car because I had to get to the sale at the mall.

        The car analogy here is broken though: if I steal your car you're going to care about it; if I make a copy of your car, not so much!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        One of the things that poor kids find excludes them from socializing with friends is that they can't afford the video game console or the sports equipment to participate. Same thing applies to the buzz around new shows.

        The rest of the world was pretty upset when CBS decided that Star Trek Discovery would not be broadcast outside the US until January. It's not the waiting, it's that the moment the new episode airs all the Americans are posting spoilers and reactions and discussing it at length. Star Trek fan

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fermion ( 181285 )
          These are some pretty sad people. In my area outside the US we are sad because bandits are preventing food deliveries.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Agripa ( 139780 )

        If the supreme court can define "limited time" in the Constitution as finite but unbounded, then my copyright violation occurred for an infinitesimal time.

    • This deal if you read the article is mostly a big hit to sports fans, live events. If you have Disney+ your kids are good. If you have a hot ABC local weather lady, like myself, its a huge loss. I would take the $15 discount since I dont watch sports, the local Fox weather lady is pretty hot.

  • Well, at least it's past CFB season... (Score:3)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @05:58PM (#62080851) Homepage Journal
    I noted on the channels to be lost, would be all of the ESPN channels.

    I pretty much only watch anything ESPN or sports related during college football season.

    Thankfully, that has just ended. Unless they have bowl games on ESPN I'll not miss much there...aren't most major bowl games on the national network channels still?

    I guess I would miss the FX channels, as that I often stop while channel surfing to catch a Simpson's episode or two that is almost always playing there.

    Not much else a loss there.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Fresno?

      • To be fair, this is Disney being assholes and trying to leverage YouTube TV into paying different rates than equally sized cable services. And Google's strategy here is brilliant: we're going to give a discount to our customers equal to the charge for your service, and you get the expense of delivering that content to the consumer who is paying the same price - good luck delivering it for cheaper than we do.

        NBC Universal Comcast tried this shit with YouTube TV earlier this year, and quickly collapsed like

      • Thankfully, that has just ended. Unless they have bowl games on ESPN I'll not miss much there...aren't most major bowl games on the national network channels still?

        Lucky me. The only bowl game I'm interested in this year is on the 18th on ESPN. After their Roku spat (I have multiple Roku devices) and this, I'm getting tired of Google's threats to decimate my service. I might cancel my Youtube.tv and switch to something else.

        I agree with you. Youtube TV losing channels is an event that should happen to Youtube, a service with few if any socially redeeming qualities.

    • The question will be how long before the NFL and NCAA starts streaming their games online, without ESPN.

    • I don't watch the ESPN channels either (or sports channels is general). But financially, sports channels are the biggest driver for subscriptions to live TV services like cable, satellite, and specialized streaming. It's not a big deal for you and me, but it's a big deal for the industry and a huge portion of the customer base.

      That's also the reason why the "Disney-free plan for $15 less" option won't fly either. The customer demand for these channels is large enough that it gives Disney enough negotiati

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gmack ( 197796 )

        I am not a sports guy so this is an honest question. What is the downside of just getting ESPN+ ($6.99/month) and adding it to whatever else you were streaming?

        • ESPN+ is great for MLS, European football leagues, and college sports. But it does not include the two most popular sports leagues NBA and NFL. And the third forth most popular leagues MLB, and NHL only only has maybe 1 or 2 games a week from seemingly random teams on the service.

  • Ok... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That's nice. Didn't ask.

  • been happening for decades, google will pay up then raise it's prices everyone will complain and still pay up and still spend untold hours watching their teams lose or be average

    • Note: "The Bachelor" is like ESPN for women. Teams and competition.

      No one will pay to watch "Good Morning America."

  • I am trying really hard to give a shit. Ate a day old bean burrito from the food truck across the street and then drank a whole jug of Metamucil and prune juice, still not able to.

  • ESPN needs to be an pay channel & disney go ba (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @06:32PM (#62081003)

    ESPN needs to be an pay channel & disney channel needs to go back to being one.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ESPN needs to be an pay channel & disney channel needs to go back to being one.

      In the long run, everyone in the industry seems to believe that streaming will be the way things go, letting the sports fanatics pay their own way. However, Disney (ESPN), the RSNs, and the leagues, do not have the contracts in place to make it viable, and it is not at all clear if streaming will not result in smaller market teams/sports continue to decline in relevance.

      • Quite the opposite, streaming will result in increased popularity for the sports leagues as they will be able to reach all of the people who don't have cable. Cord cutting is killing these leagues by keeping younger people away.

  • We need an icon of two guys in business suits attempting to squeeze blood from a turnip.

  • OH NO! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Pierre Pants ( 6554598 )
    Oh actually who cares? Maybe pedophiles? Can't see who else.

  • Disney free forever? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZipK ( 1051658 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @07:01PM (#62081073)
    How about offering a tier without Disney for $15 less all the time?

    • the mouse says NO

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Then people would just whine that it's like cable, the basic package sucks and you end up paying $$$ for add-ons. Their "everything for one price" is in line with how Netflix operates, and people seem to like that.

      The real issue is that the price is just way too high.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      that would actually move it into a range that might be worth buying.

      Heck, blocking Good Morning America so that my wife is never watching that vapidity and condescension would be worth *paying* a couple of bucks a month . . .

      I actually managed to find tier below "Standard" for my cable that doesn't have ESPN . . .

  • Fuck Disney and what they did to copyright

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Wait until you find out how youtube treats copyright. Disney at least doesn't enable content and money theft from small producers by large ones on a massive scale in the name of protecting copyright.

      Unlike youtube.

  • You can stream live sports for free any sporting event. Do a search for web sites. That is the only reason people feel tied to pay services. I dropped DishTV about 10 years ago and haven't missed a single game that I wanted to see. I pay for Netflix and that's it. You have options.

  • Disney will not be happy until the only way to watch any of their properties is through a continuous subscription feeding money directly into the veins of the mouse. Greediest media company in history, and yes, I do realize that's saying something considering the likes of the record companies, the Hollywood producers, the TV networks owned by billionaires and such. But Disney's been practicing it's money-shoveling technique for so long that you can hardly discuss *NOT* subscribing to them with people you

  • And nothing of value was lost. I don't support Disney. Anything that helps removes them from reality is a good thing.

  • Oh no, how will I ever live without that?

  • Music I regularly watch on Youtube and use them as mobile ringtones at https://klingeltonkostenlos.de... [klingeltonkostenlos.de]

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