The two-week DirecTV-Disney carriage dispute appears to be wrapping up. The two sides announced Saturday morning that they’ve reached an agreement in principle, and that’s seen the Disney channels (including ESPN networks, owned-and-operated ABC affiliates, and streaming rights to other ABC affiliates) return to DirecTV, UVerse, and DirecTV Stream. Pat McAfee even mentioned that on College GameDay Saturday morning:
Pat McAfee welcomes back DirecTV on ESPN’s College GameDay. 🏈📺🎙️pic.twitter.com/yrIE1s4ex5
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 14, 2024
The language in a joint press release makes it sound like both companies have reached some of the goals they were looking for. Here’s that release in full:
DIRECTV and The Walt Disney Company today announced an agreement in principle that provides greater choice, value, and flexibility to their mutual customers. As a result, Disney’s full linear suite of networks has been restored to DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and U-verse customers while both parties work to finalize a new, multi-year contract.
Among the core points agreed to are:
• Continued carriage at market-based terms of Disney’s entertainment, sports and news programming from its comprehensive linear portfolio, which includes the ABC Owned Television Stations, the ESPN networks, the Disney-branded channels, Freeform, the FX networks and the National Geographic channels.
• The opportunity to offer multiple genre-specific options — sports, entertainment, kids & family — inclusive of Disney’s linear networks along with Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.
• Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming services (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+) to be included in select DIRECTV packages under a wholesale agreement, and also to be made available on an a la carte
basis.
• The rights to distribute Disney’s upcoming ESPN flagship direct-to-consumer service upon its launch at no additional cost to DIRECTV customers.In a joint statement, the two companies commented: “Through this first-of-its-kind collaboration, DIRECTV and Disney are giving customers the ability to tailor their video experience through more flexible options. DIRECTV and Disney have a long-standing history of connecting consumers to the best entertainment, and this agreement furthers that commitment by recognizing both the tremendous value of Disney’s content and the evolving preferences of DIRECTV’s customers. We’d like to thank all affected viewers for their patience and are pleased to restore Disney’s entire portfolio of networks in time for college football and the Emmy Awards this weekend.”
The biggest new thing here is that second bullet point on “multiple genre-specific options,” which was a key part of DTV’s asks even before the carriage dispute began. Some of that comes out of the Disney-Fox-Warner Bros. Discovery plan to launch a sports-only streaming service in Venu Sports. That service is currently stalled thanks to a judicial ruling in a Fubo lawsuit (and whether it has any kind of future is up in the air right now), but it wound up being a key part of this dispute.
That saw DTV chief content officer Rob Thun agreeing with the “ocean of opportunity” (discussed in internal Venu documents revealed in court, and contradicting previous public downplaying of the service from both people at the Venu partners and people at other networks and leagues) to reach people with that kind of package. However, Thun argued that “TV distributors should have the same flexibility to thrive alongside DTC services by offering genre-based packages.”
With this deal, it sounds like DTV will actually be able to do that. And that’s a massive change from the forced giant bundles multichannel video programming distributors have usually been made to offer. The genre-specific here is also notable, especially for sports; some of the few “skinny bundle” options MVPDs have been able to offer in the past have had either no sports at all or only half of the cable sports networks in each bundle (Sling’s plans) along with a lot of non-sports content.
This could get DTV closer to something like Venu, which was extremely attractive for consumers as a way to pick up the ESPN, Fox, and WBD cable networks (with the former two not available at all over-the-top right now, and the latter available through Max but likely to soon cost more there) , the main sports sources not available through an antenna or networks’ over-the-top options. But how well that works will depend on what they can offer and at what price point, and that’s not yet publicly announced.
Picking up the rights to distribute Disney DTC options, and to include those in some packages, is also important here. That was part of Disney’s last notable carriage dispute, with Spectrum parent Charter last year, and it also led to Charter gaining the rights to include some of those services in some packages and also just sell them to their customers.
But the biggest distinction here is the fourth bullet point on Disney’s planned ESPN Flagship streaming product, which is expected to offer the full ESPN linear networks (and maybe even Fox content?) when it launches next year, as well as much of the content that currently lives streaming-only on ESPN+, SECN+, ACCN+ and so on. Free access to that (which is expected to run at least $25 a month, and maybe much higher) is notable added value for DTV customers. And that’s especially true if Disney winds up putting more and more content only on that platform, which they may well do around its launch in particular.
The biggest thing here may be that a deal has been reached, though. That means these Disney networks are again available to DTV subscribers (and DTV had an estimated 11.3 million of those at the end of last year, the third-largest of any U.S. MVPD). And that includes both residential subscribers and bars and restaurants, where DTV is a key option that also distributes many streaming services. Getting back in front of those subscribers will in turn boost ESPN and ABC viewership numbers and keep their advertisers happy.
This also means that DTV subscribers, many of who picked their service specifically for sports (and for their limited past carriage disputes relative to competitors like Dish/Sling), now have access to a bunch of critical sports content again. That includes Saturday’s college football slate and the ESPN-exclusive Atlanta Falcons-Philadelphia Eagles Monday Night Football game this week. We’ll see what this means down the road for both companies, but this means that Disney and DTV are again working together for at least a few years.
