DirecTV’s Decision on ABC, ESPN Revealed

Disney-owned channels, including ABC and ESPN, went dark on DirecTV Sunday night as the two sides were unable to reach a new carriage agreement by the deadline.

The blackout came at a terrible time for sports fans with a busy night ahead on Disney-owned channels. Important broadcasts included the ABC/ESPN+ coverage of the No. 13 LSU vs. No. 23 USC game, the Atlanta Braves-Philadelphia Phillies Sunday Night Baseball game on ESPN, and US Open primetime tennis coverage on ESPN2.

The existing contract expired at 5 p.m. ET, and DirecTV kept the Disney-owned channels on the air for a couple of hours as negotiations continued, but the channels were dropped around 7 p.m.

Disney and ESPN issued a statement immediately, calling on DirecTV to “finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming.”

“Disney 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,” the statement read. “While we’re open to offering DirecTV flexibility and terms which we’ve extended to other distributors, we will not enter into an agreement that undervalues our portfolio of television channels and programs.”

“We urge DirecTV to do what’s in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming.”

This isn’t the first time Disney and DirecTV have faced off over a carriage agreement. Before they agreed to the just-expired five-year deal in 2019, they struggled to reach terms, and Disney ran commercials warning its channels could disappear from DirecTV.

There are additional complexities in this round of negotiations, particularly the planned Venu Sports joint streaming venture involving ESPN/Disney, TNT Sports/Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox.

While that venture has been temporarily blocked by a judge pending a lawsuit by Fubo, DirecTV is reportedly concerned by the new venture. Bloomberg’s Christopher Palmeri reported that “DirecTV is looking to ease contract terms that have long required cable and satellite-TV distributors to charge customers for channels like Disney’s ESPN, whether they watch them or not.”

Regardless of what the biggest concerns were behind closed doors, they couldn’t resolve them by the deadline, leaving fans frustrated.

Source: ESPN, Awful Announcing