Copyright Android Headlines
After a weekend of everyone blaming YouTube TV for losing the Disney channels, including ESPN, YouTube TV is finally coming out on the offensive, having an unnamed exec speak with Deadline. Claiming that Disney has been “unnecessarily aggressive” in negotiations, and has an “antiquated view” of pay-TV economics. The exec also apparently said that Disney is “not being reasonable to expect steep carriage fee increases.” They also expanded to say that there are “aspects of their portfolio that are doing well on our platform. Disney has a very broad portfolio of channels where viewership on many networks is in decline or nonexistent. Essentially, Disney is forcing YouTube TV to carry its entire catalog of channels. We’ve also seen rumors that Disney wants its partners to carry ESPN Unlimited and Disney+ as part of their carriage deals. That would drastically increase the cost of YouTube TV, something that YouTube TV doesn’t want to do. Nearly half of the channels on YouTube TV are owned by Disney, and forcing a provider to carry the entire catalog is not out of the ordinary. NBCU, Paramount, and FOX all do this. They have a set of channels that every provider must carry in their base plan, plus a set of channels that can be provided in an add-on. Disney is also responsible for the majority of the cost of YouTube TV, since they carry the majority of sports on YouTube TV, which is not cheap. Will Disney and YouTube TV work something out? There’s still hope that a deal will be worked out here between Disney and YouTube TV, but it might take some time. And the longer this takes, the more it benefits Disney. As many are leaving YouTube TV to watch college football elsewhere. And the main competitors are Disney-owned. There’s Hulu + Live TV which Disney obviously owns, there’s ESPN Unlimited which has all of the ESPN content, and then there’s Fubo. Disney actually took a 70% stake in Fubo recently, and is merging it with Hulu + Live TV. So, YouTube TV is forcing people to leave their platform for Disney-owned platforms. So even if Disney caves, they’ve already won. Disney is trying their hardest to have a monopoly in the pay-TV world, which should draw the attention of regulators.
