YouTube TV Loses ESPN, ABC and Other Disney Channels 57
Disney's channels, including ESPN, ABC, FX, and NatGeo, have gone dark on YouTube TV after Google and Disney failed to renew their carriage agreement before the October 30 deadline, with each side blaming the other for using unfair negotiating tactics and price hikes. YouTube TV says it will issue a $20 credit to subscribers if the blackout continues while negotiations proceed. Engadget reports: "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," YouTube said in an announcement on its blog. "They're now following through on that threat, suspending their content on YouTube TV." YouTube added that Disney's decision harms its subscribers while benefiting its own live TV products, such as Hulu+Live TV and Fubo.
In a statement sent to the Los Angeles Times, however, Disney accused Google's YouTube TV of choosing to deny "subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for [its] channels, including ESPN and ABC." Disney also accused Google of using its market dominance to "eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms" that other pay-TV distributors have agreed to pay for its content.
In a statement sent to the Los Angeles Times, however, Disney accused Google's YouTube TV of choosing to deny "subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for [its] channels, including ESPN and ABC." Disney also accused Google of using its market dominance to "eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms" that other pay-TV distributors have agreed to pay for its content.
and the real loser is... (Score:2)
Again the People lose, here in the US and abroad.
WEYD rocks.
Re:and the real loser is... (Score:4, Informative)
And once again, the pirates win. These companies will never learn.
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How do the pirates win? How can any of this affect non-customers?
I know you think you're being insightful and clever, but you are neither.
Re:and the real loser is... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do the pirates win? How can any of this affect non-customers?
You are missing the point, this affects current customers which will lead to some of them becoming "non-customers" which is a win for them since they will have less problems and ads, plus they'll have more disposable income they can spend to their liking on something else.
I know you think you're being insightful and clever, but you are neither.
It's insightful and clever when compared to the actions of the companies involved which seems hellbent on accelerating the enshittification.
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The pirates were already pirating, they are already lost. A few former customers will go pirate but most will just do without. Not that Disney is going to do anything but lose their A$$ off. YouTube will just keep churning out petabytes of junk...
Re: and the real loser is... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't even watch tv anymore, but I think that if YouTube is issuing a credit, that's fair. Many cable providers don't even carry any of the Disney/ABC/ESPN channels anymore precisely because Disney charges too fucking much, mainly because they bundle a lot of very expensive shit into a package deal where most people only watch a fraction of it and just don't get their money's worth. Probably high time the whole industry tells them to go fuck themselves.
I dropped Netflix to the bottom tier (free with my TMobile sub) after they raised their prices last time, which was about the time they started carrying spectator sports crap, which not only do I not care about, but it's also expensive even if you don't watch it. Stopped watching Netflix after that.
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Many cable providers don't even carry any of the Disney/ABC/ESPN channels anymore precisely because Disney charges too fucking much
Really? Which ones? This is newsworthy specifically because they all do, but when negotiations happen, it gets attention. This has happened with other providers. It is expected that a standard tier cable/streaming includes ABC, ESPN, Fox, NBC, etc.
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For most people paying for live television ESPN (and ABC Sports) is the part that they actually want. That's why these negotiations always happen during Football season. Disney is trying to get YouTubeTV to pay for a bunch of channels whose viewership drops every year and they use the access to the live sporting events that people care about as a club.
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I suspect that these streams are costing Youtube money. They can't monetize them, and they have to spend effort shutting them down or they get in serious legal trouble. If things persist I suspect that Youtube changes its live streaming service in ways that make this impossible.
We will see though.
Re:and the real loser is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Again the People lose, here in the US and abroad.
WEYD rocks.
Really nothing of value was lost. When Disney went all in on social modification, around 2015 or so, when they bought ESPN, and went so far as to make a man the woman of the year (Bruce Jenner - now Caitlin) they were prioritizing certain politics over content.
And ESPN has shrunk significantly, and Disney has managed to kill golden geese like Star Wars.
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I don't think I've heard of YouTube TV. (Score:1)
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Is it another Netflix without the "originals"? I've seen videos in my regular feed that had a price tag, so I assume those are part of it.
No, it's more like a traditional cable TV company - but on the Internet.
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It is a direct competitor to Disney's Hulu Live.
why is ESPN forced into the basic package when it' (Score:1)
why is ESPN forced into the basic package when it's an stand alone package?
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So that ESPN is ensure massive revenues, just like Fox News. There are agreements that bundles are mandatory so you can't cut the vampires out.
Re:why is ESPN forced into the basic package when (Score:5, Informative)
So that ESPN is ensure massive revenues, just like Fox News. There are agreements that bundles are mandatory so you can't cut the vampires out.
It's worse than that. ESPN has massive revenue, but also massive costs. Contrast with Disney, where the cost of production is dirt cheap by comparison, and what you conclude is that Disney/ABC is basically taking advantage of knowing that a lot of folks want sports to force mandated bundling so that all those people who don't watch ESPN end up helping pay for the ones who do, both by paying for the ESPN part and the Disney part, which ends up subsidizing the ESPN part.
The worst thing that can happen to a streaming service is getting sports. We need to keep streaming sports on their own a la carte services. As soon as you start bundling it in, the cost of the service skyrockets while the quality of the content plummets, because sports is such a huge fiscal black hole.
Re:why is ESPN forced into the basic package when (Score:4, Insightful)
You have this almost completely backwards. Sports fans currently subsidize scripted television to an almost outrageous extent. I used to work for Sling. Disney doesn't have to push ESPN and ABC Sports on the providers. It has to convince them to carry (and pay for) the rest of the channels. If sports fans could get access to the games that they wanted without having to pay for scripted television scripted television as we know it would disappear overnight. What we would be left with is the sort of thing that is currently available on Youtube.
As an example, Apple has spent over $20 billion on content over the last 6 years. Amazon Prime, on the other hand, spends just over $1 billion a year for Thursday Night Football. That's basically the worst possible NFL football game, and it still regularly has about half as many concurrent viewers as Apple TV has total subscribers. That's basically the case across the board. Sports is why YouTubeTV currently costs about 4 times as much per month as the most expensive Netflix package or 5 times what Disney+ costs. Sports fans are willing to pay for their television in a way that other viewers simply aren't willing to do. Disney and the other networks are doing their best to keep sports tied to the rest of their empires. It will be interesting to see how things end up.
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That sounds right to me.
Look at what people pay for the NFL Sunday Ticket thing alone. It's a lot of damned money.
I totally can buy that what people will pay for sports subsidizes everything else.
At the same time, you have hard-heads like me who are simply cheap bastards. We look at a bundle, see it has a bunch of shit we know we will never watch, and pass on it because we don't want to pay. For people like me, a no-sports tier that is rock bottom cheap is the only way to get my money. That said, it's entir
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That sounds right to me.
Look at what people pay for the NFL Sunday Ticket thing alone. It's a lot of damned money.
I totally can buy that what people will pay for sports subsidizes everything else.
At the same time, you have hard-heads like me who are simply cheap bastards. We look at a bundle, see it has a bunch of shit we know we will never watch, and pass on it because we don't want to pay. For people like me, a no-sports tier that is rock bottom cheap is the only way to get my money. That said, it's entirely possible my money isn't worth getting, in the overall scheme of things.
YouTube TV costs what, something more than $50/month? Just not worth it to me. I MIGHT PAY $10/month. What can I get for that? It may turn out that the provider decides my $10/month isn't worth its time. So, I'm a non-customer. I'll continue to watch whatever I can get for free via an antenna. Plus, now that I have a GoogleTV powered TV, I can get a huge amount of free channels on top of that. Why would I ever pay the asking price for something like YouTubeTV?
Same. I can't imagine paying $50 a month for any service. I'm currently an extra member on my mom's Netflix account because Netflix decided they didn't want my $11.99 and I wasn't willing to pay them $17.99 a month or endure ads. And that's where 90% of my viewing comes from.
So maybe buck or two a month is about all I'd be willing to spend for the very limited amount of viewing that something like YouTube TV would provide, assuming I could even deal with the commercials from live TV enough to watch it at
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I hate commercials, and advertising in general.
But I'm surprised how much they come up in these discussions. I mean, there is a mute button. Kinda solves the problem for me, for the most part.
On a different note....here is something I can't figure out. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
On the new TV I got, when I am watching some channels, instead of commercials, I get a black screen and some weird funky music, with the text on the screen saying "we will be right back" with a countdown timer. Typically for
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On the new TV I got, when I am watching some channels, instead of commercials, I get a black screen and some weird funky music, with the text on the screen saying "we will be right back" with a countdown timer. Typically for 2 minutes.
My question is, why are they not giving me commercials, instead of this screen? Who is benefiting? If they're not going to show a commercial, why not just show the content? What's the point of these two minute commercialless commercial breaks? Why not use them to actually show commercials?
It's not clear to me if these screens are on channels provided by GoogleTV or via the over the air antenna or what. I've not paid the close attention. I guess I should, as I'm really curious.
I don't know exactly where you're getting the content, so I can't be completely certain, but when you pull network feeds off satellite, there's often a period of time allocated for local commercial insertion by affiliates. I'm not sure what they put in during that period these days, but that might be what you're seeing. If the downstream affiliate isn't injecting ads correctly (or at all), then you'd have whatever placeholder content filled the gap, which might be national ads for other shows on the netwo
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Except...as you pointed out...if you want these other channels your subscribers want; then you have no choice but to make everyone pay for ESPN. If you don't carry those channels, you'll lose out on subscribers. If you carry them, everyone has to pay for ESPN and the price goes up, you still lose out on subscribers.
Multi-Channel Video services...no matter the transport; are a losing game these days. There's fewer and fewer reasons for networks to negotiate outside of the bundling that means they'll get forc
Sodomize YouTube (Score:1)
They censored and deplatformed me for years... so I hope they burn.
Free speech is not political, it is common sense! I want to hear from everyone.
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You know what's really harmful?
Decided that what someone has to say is harmful, and then preventing anyone who maybe interested in seeing it from doing so.
If you don't like it, then don't watch it. Leave everyone else alone.
Slippery slope (Score:2)
This rule leads to "harmful, illegal, or dangerous" being redefined to be whatever the herd feels threatened by.
Some say "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but I say that mass delusion is the corruption and only some give in to it.
This is nothing different (Score:2)
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If they could get people to give up $20 in exchange for ESPN and ABC Sports that is the best deal they could possibly make. Most of YouTubeTV's customers pay for the sports package. They could get the other content somewhere else for less. YouTubeTV is hoping that they can stave off the mass exodus as people realize that they won't be able to watch the games that they signed up for, and that their cable TV replacement is basically worthless.
No mention of the 4 BILLION they lost? (Score:2)
I'm sure that Disney raising rates, bundling Hulu with D+ and raising rates, and now this attempt to get more money from Google for carrying their content...have nothing to do with the tremendous loss they suffered due to their own stu
Re:No mention of the 4 BILLION they lost? (Score:5, Informative)
Disney does this every time it negotiates its contract, and it is always during Football season. I used to work for Sling they did this to us twice while I worked there.
This is how live television actually works these days. Disney has a pile of channels that they can't hardly give away. Remember, we aren't talking about shows (although most shows don't matter either). We are talking about channels. When was the last time you channel surfed trying to find something on the air? My guess is that it was decades ago. Well, all those channels still exist, and the live television providers still pretend that someone cares whether re-runs of Wizard of Waverly Place is playing on whatever channel reruns of that show play on these days.
It's 2025. Sane people watch pre-recorded stuff when they have time. The industry calls that Video on Demand. They stream these shows from someone that let's them watch when they want to watch, and that keeps track of where they are when the stop. They don't tune in every day at 3:30 PM and watch reruns of their favorite show. If you are old enough, like me, you probably remember sitting down with all of your friends every week to watch the newest episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, or whatever. Remember how terrible that was. You had to make an appointment to watch television or you missed an episode and you couldn't watch it until it was in re-runs.
Well, those days are so dead no one even mourns them any more.
Disney knows this, and YouTubeTV knows this as well. Everyone involved in live television knows this. The only reason that people even have live television subscriptions is so that they can watch sports while the game is happening live. And in the United States that means that mostly boils down to watching football.
So every few years each of the live television companies (all of the cable companies, essentially) have to renegotiate with Disney. Every year the story is precisely the same. Viewership on everyone's live channels is down at least 25%. The market is shedding customers like crazy. Disney wants to raise prices at least 30%, and they also want the companies to carry (and pay for) a wide array of channels that absolutely no one watches. Meanwhile, the broadcasters just wants access to ESPN and ABC Sports. The reason that people pay money for YouTubeTV is that want to be able to watch the live sports content, and to a lesser extent the live news. Even that basically amounts to the sports news. They want to watch the College football games on Saturday, and the NFL games on Sunday. They want to be able to have a baseball game playing in the background, or catch their NBA team play. They want to hear the talking heads talk about sports, and they want to see the highlights. To accomplish this they are willing to pay approximately 4 times the cost of the fanciest Netflix subscription, maybe more if they have to rush out and sign up for another service because YouTubeTV no longer has access to ESPN and ABC Sports.
Before you think that YouTubeTV is probably gouging their customers you probably should know that YouTubeTV almost certainly pays basically every penny that their customers pay them directly to the content providers like Disney. All of the providers do this, but Disney is by far the worst. In Disney's defense they have the content that people actually want to see. Sling used the entirety of the proceeds from its subscribers to pay the various provider fees, and I actually suspect that YouTubeTV was subsidizing its customers. With the packages that they carry I suspect that they sold packages at a loss. So when Disney comes back and asks for more, with the overall pie shrinking every year. It is no wonder that YouTubeTV opted to turn out the lights.
One thing is certain, this definitely isn't about Jimmy Kimmel. That sort of content has already been moved irrevocably to normal YouTube. Absolutely no one is watching it on live television. Jimmy's return had just
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Nice post. Informative. Plus one.
"Nobody" is a word you throw around a lot. I know you're exaggerating, but A LOT of people, especially boomers, still watch live TV other than sports on the regular. Is it 14 million on one show? No. 14 million overall? I'd not be surprised if it was more.
My parents watch a lot of live TV. They enjoy the stream of something familiar and long form without having to choose. This is much like how YouTube operates, as it keeps autoplaying the next thing. It's just that
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I definitely tend to speak in hyperbole. I actually appreciate that reminder. That sort of thing really doesn't help make any of my points.
The reality is that there are lots of people that have televisions on all day long, and there are plenty of businesses (for example restaurants) where they might have multiple televisions on all day long. Television is still a very powerful way to reach a fairly wide audience, even if live television has fallen a long. Heck, much of the content that gets the most v
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I can happily live without all this content. I was somewhat excited for the newest seasons of One Punch Man. It's disappointing. I watched Chainsaw Man's first season and then saw the film in the theater yesterday. Wow, what an awful film. I'll likely not watch any more of the series. We got the Regal movie pass recently and have seen several films over the past few weeks. It's been a nice change of pace. Not sure we'll do more. The wife watches a ton of Chinese soap operas and American sitcoms on
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The problem, of course, is that Sports content is paying more than its fair share of the bill for all televised content. It is easy to see the large bills and assume that sports is a cost center, but the reality is that sport tends to pay its own way, while scripted television is much more of a gamble. To a certain extent that is why most scripted television these days is so formulaic. The television studios know that they can make money with modern versions of "The Rockford Files." That's why NCIS is i
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>"It's 2025. Sane people watch pre-recorded stuff when they have time. The industry calls that Video on Demand. They stream these shows from someone that let's them watch when they want to watch, and that keeps track of where they are when the stop. They don't tune in every day at 3:30 PM and watch reruns of their favorite show. If you are old enough, like me, you probably remember sitting down with all of your friends every week to watch the newest episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, or whatever.
Re:No mention of the 4 BILLION they lost? (Score:4, Insightful)
The DVR revolution was a huge deal, and it also created a split between scripted and unscripted television. Once DVRs came out they quickly became a very popular way to watch scripted television. Since you were already time shifting your programs, it made sense to also skip over the ads. Live sports (and news), on the other hand tend to be watched live. People might wander off to get a snack when the commercials come on, but they rarely miss all of the commercials. Some sports fans will record a game and watch it later, but in those cases where they can't watch the game they mostly just watch the highlights. This is so popular that highlight news shows (with advertisements that generally don't get skipped, or are embedded in the content) are basically the most popular type of news.
Heck, for many sports fans the ads are basically part of the experience. They tune in early for pre-show events where there is nothing but advertisements. The talking heads either promote later shows, or they do product placement spots literally for hours.
Viewers of scripted shows, on the other hand, often go to great lengths to skip the ads. They set up VCRs and later Tivos and other DVRs. They bought (or rented and ripped) DVDs so they could own a pristine copy. Heck, as you know that's literally how Netflix started their business.
That's why Hollywood complained (at every step) about these technologies, while the sports people largely didn't care. They worked for the same companies, but their realities were very different. Moving into the modern era it is becoming more and more clear that sports fans have been subsidizing other television fans for decades. As the needs and wants of these two groups grow further and further apart expect interesting things to happen.
Right now Disney capitalizes with every negotiation on the fact that many YouTubeTV subscribers are actually sports television subscribers looking for a reliable way to ESPN and ABC Sports. If they can't watch ESPN on Saturday and miss their alma mater play the big game they aren't going to be mollified with a $20 on their bill. They are going to cancel. So the average sports consumer pays for hundreds of channels that they never use, and their money pays for 90% of the television that gets produced, despite the fact that they don't watch it. As this disconnect becomes more and more apparent expect Hollywood to have an even harder time funding the creation of content.
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>"Moving into the modern era it is becoming more and more clear that sports fans have been subsidizing other television fans for decades. As the needs and wants of these two groups grow further and further apart expect interesting things to happen."
I have absolutely ZERO interest in sports and have always resented how much I am paying to have those expensive channels that I NEVER use. Now there is such a tiny amount of content left that I like, and the prices are so high, it seems like nothing has much
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+10
I don't care for sports all that much either and if ESPN died tomorrow I wouldn't shed a tear (in fact I'd probably rejoice). My 1 weakness is the olympics though. :) I loved Netflix DVD rental too and am sad that's gone. So I'm left with Tivo to record the few shows I care about for as long as it works. When that goes, I don't know, maybe I'll just stop watching TV. I've got a huge pile of DVD movies sitting on a Jellyfin server to keep me busy and I regularly visit a used DVD store to pick up new conte
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Netflix Disc was awesome. I also miss that a lot. If you aren't interested in live content you should be able to get the shows that you want at an incredible deal. These days I personally mostly watch Youtube. But I sometimes sign up for a month of one of the services to watch a particular show. They basically all allow you to cancel any time. There are also DVR tools that record over the air television that are pretty good. Depending on where you live you might be surprised at what is available. Pl
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I "channel surf" looking for something to watch all the time. I often end up on "Little House on the Prairie" or similar.
I can't believe I'm the only one.
I do agree that I'm not going to "make an appointment". I don't value tv highly enough to do that.
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My hyperbole got the better of me again. You are not the only one. Little House on the Prairie is remarkably good television. It definitely beats doom-scrolling on your phone.
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If you are old enough, like me, you probably remember sitting down with all of your friends every week to watch the newest episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, or whatever. Remember how terrible that was.
It wasn't terrible. I miss getting together with a few like-minded people who were excited to see a show together and discuss it afterward every week.
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Getting together with my college friends to watch Star Trek the Next Generation was awesome. Those are definitely core memories. But even then there were issues. I never got into Babylon 5 because I worked while that was on. I recently decided to watch them, but it's not the same thing.
My kids (I have 6) get together every Sunday to watch "Dancing with the Stars." They are always a bit sad that they are days late to be able to vote, but the fact that they can watch on their time means they get to wa
F*ck Disney (Score:2)
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Obvious post is obvious.
Just like Charter Spectrum in 2023... (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] for that. :/
Cut out ESPN ! Stream for free. ! (Score:3)
"fair rates" (Score:2)
YouTube refuses to pay its fair share! Down with the oligarchs!
ESPN's costs for all those sports contracts ... (Score:2)