DirecTV and Disney Dispute Leaves 11M Without ESPN, ABC Channels

For the major US satellite pay-television provider DirecTV, The Walt Disney Company failed to reach a new distribution agreement covering ESPN, ABC, and other Disney networks. Because of this, over 11 million subscribers in the country will no longer be able to receive these channels from DirecTV, effective September 1st.

This contact dispute comes at the end of the US Open, just before the new NFL season starts, and ahead of ABC News’s presidential debate on September 10. Customers using a DirecTV trying to access a Disney-owned channel now get a message saying: “Our contract with Disney, the owner of this channel, has expired. Thank you for your patience while we negotiate to be able to offer you more flexibility, choice, and value.”

According to Reuters, DirecTV was trying to position itself to change its product to meet today’s consumer preferences for streaming and negotiate a new multi-billion-dollar licensing agreement. It wanted to convince Disney to permit the sale of smaller, lower-priced packages that could exclude ESPN for customers who are not interested in sports.

Rob Thun, DirecTV’s chief content officer, let loose against Disney: “Disney wants 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.”

Specifically, Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, Co-Chairmen of Disney Entertainment, and Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman of ESPN, fired back with a statement of their own: “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.”. While we are willing to give DirecTV flexibility and terms that we have offered to other distributors, we will not agree to a deal that devalues our portfolio of television channels and programs. We invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the No. 1 brands in entertainment, news and sports because that is what our viewers expect and deserve. We call on DirecTV to act in the interest of their subscribers and conclude an agreement which would return our programmes to them with immediate effect.