Tuesday night’s U.S. presidential debate (9 p.m. ET) between vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump has proven to be an interesting part of the ongoing DirecTV-Disney carriage dispute, and one of the biggest non-sports impacts so far. While that debate is being shown across all broadcast networks (as well as some cable news channels), and while it’s being streamed on both free and pay platforms (including ABC News Live, Hulu, and Disney+), it won’t be accessible on host network ABC for many DTV customers. That’s led to some angst, and to competing claims from the sides around an offer Disney made that DTV ultimately rejected.
Despite the debate’s accessibility on other networks and platforms, both sides have raised concerns about impacts from the carriage dispute for DTV customers looking to watch it on host network ABC. (The actual debate footage will be the same across networks, but every network has their own team providing analysis before and after it.) Indeed, DTV has cited the debate prominently in many of their complaints about Disney’s actions, including one to the FCC this weekend. And, after they couldn’t work out the dispute in time for Monday’s Jets-49ers clash, the debate sparked the next natural flashpoint.
What’s the actual ABC impact here? Many ABC affiliates are owned by other companies that DirecTV has to strike their own carriage deals with, and those remain on linear DTV packages for now. However, there are eight owned-and-operated ABC affiliates in some of the biggest U.S. markets, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and those are off all DTV packages right now. And, because ABC streaming deals are worked out nationally by ABC parent Disney, all ABC affiliates (even those not owned by Disney) are off the DTV app and DTV’s “DirecTV Stream” virtual multichannel video programming distributor packages.
Ahead of the debate, Disney offered to let DTV carry ABC again for the duration of debate programming. But DTV turned that deal, saying it would spark customer confusion. Here are the dueling statements the sides put out Tuesday, starting with one from Disney:
“As we announced in May, the ABC News presidential debate will be widely available across broadcast, cable and streaming. Although we have yet to reach an agreement, we are providing a three-hour feed of ABC News coverage to all impacted DirecTV customers at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight’s debate at this important moment in our history. We remain at the table negotiating with DirecTV and the restoration of our programming to their subscribers is completely within their control.”
And here’s DTV’s statement on why they didn’t take that offer, from a post headlined “Disney denies DIRECTV request to return programming ahead of Presidential Debate“:
For the past 10 days, The Walt Disney Co. has blocked sports fans and families from enjoying their programming on DIRECTV while we have tried to reach a new agreement.
On Tuesday, Disney requested a unique exception to return ABC-only for tonight because it’s hosting the 2024 Presidential Debate, an event widely available across other major broadcast stations and news networks. Unfortunately, returning only Disney’s ABC stations from the entire portfolio of channels for a limited 3-hour window will cause customer confusion among those who would briefly see the debate only to lose the channel again shortly after.
DIRECTV agreed to return ABC in time for tonight’s Presidential Debate if Disney is also willing to return all its channels across platforms through the end of Monday Night Football at 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Sept. 16. Returning the Disney-owned channels for the next week while we work to reach a new agreement would benefit customers who would regain access to ABC for the debate and the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 15 as well as their favorite college and professional football games on ABC and ESPN, ACC or SEC networks.
The Walt Disney Co. flat-out rejected DIRECTV’s offer.
The debate in particular is interesting because its unavailability on DTV packages has consequences for both ABC (and thus Disney) and DTV. For DTV, there are further potential aggrieved customers here; most probably are already well-aware of the ABC blackout, but there may be some who don’t watch other ABC programming but wanted to tune into the debate host network. And debates tend to be highly-watched events, and this one could really do numbers, especially without any football going head-to-head with it.
For ABC, this could be a significant blow to their debate ratings. If those DTV customers wind up watching this on other networks, that doesn’t benefit ABC (except for those digital Disney-owned platforms), and, as noted here, the ABC O-and-Os are in some of the country’s largest markets. So that (in addition to pushing back on some of DTV’s claims to the FCC, which had a high focus on both ABC and the debate) explains why they’d make this kind of three-hour amnesty offer.
But it’s also understandable why DTV would turn this down, as this is a debate that’s highly viewable on other channels they do currently carry. And if they had given in, that would perhaps have given Disney some further PR ammunition, painting DTV as only willing to carry these channels around the debate but making unfair offers otherwise. And, like most carriage disputes, a large part of this one involves both sides’ PR operations, which are trying to convince customers to side with them (and trying to convince media to portray their side as the reasonable one).
The largest takeaway from this from a neutral standpoint is that the dispute does not appear particularly close to being solved. There was some early optimism there, but that’s drawn back significantly recently, especially after a deal wasn’t worked out in time for the MNF debut (the second of four potential timeframes we said this could potentially end in). And if the sides were making actual progress, even a limited deal here might have been more acceptable to DTV. But the Disney proposal here and the DTV rejection of it make it seem like the sides are still far apart. And, beyond the debate, that could have a lot of sports effects going forward.
[Disney debate graphic via AdWeek]
