Spectrum customers lose ABC, ESPN and more in Disney fight. Here’s what to know.
Spectrum cable customers lost access to Disney-owned channels on Aug. 31 as a result of an ongoing contract disagreement — one that Spectrum’s parent company describes as “not a classic carriage dispute.”
Charter Communications, which owns Spectrum, has been negotiating its carriage contract with The Walt Disney Company for months, without resolution.
Disney networks went dark on Spectrum at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, Aug. 31.
Here’s what Charter Spectrum says
In a call to shareholders and media early on Sept. 1, Charter executives gave a broad outline of their efforts to propose a new, more collaborative model with Disney that would keep customers who don’t watch Disney channels from paying higher fees that accompany the bundling of Disney’s more than two dozen networks.
Disney rejected the proposal, said Charter executives, and “reverted to the tired playbook of trying to squeeze every last dollar” out of consumers.
Carriers like Charter, AT&T/DirecTV, YouTube, Sling, Hulu and DISH pay cable networks and TV station owners a monthly license fee to carry their signals. Disney packages are expensive to cable, satellite and streaming carriers because of the number of networks they own and the fact that they require companies to carry all of them, with no a la carte options.
Bottom line: don’t expect a quick outcome this time.
Two things to know from the Charter call:
- Charter Spectrum will offer discounts to customers during the outage. Call customer service for details: (833) 267-6094.
- Charter Spectrum says that about 25% of their customers “regularly engage” with Disney content and about half of those customers are “highly engaged” with the content. (Note: Disney refutes this number.) Charter says it will work with those customers to find other options to access Disney content (likely through a partner streaming service), if Disney is permanently removed.
Here’s what Disney says
Disney’s initial statement said that the deal they are seeking with Charter is a “market-based agreement” and that they were committed to a resolution.
A week later, language intensified, with Disney saying that Charter has “abandoned” its customers.
From Disney: “While they have stated their ‘indifference’ to the needs of millions of paying customers, we will not lose sight of what is most important – investing in the highest-quality stories, news and sports for our audience. The question for Charter is clear: Do you care about your subscribers and what they’re telling you they want – or not? Disney stands ready to resolve this dispute and do what’s in the best interest of Charter’s customers.”
In the same press release, Disney refuted Charter’s claim that 25% of their customers “regularly engage” with Disney networks. Disney cites a Nielsen number of 71% of Charter subscribers who “tune in” to Disney networks (the difference here could be in the definition of “regularly engage” vs. “tune in”).
What Charter Spectrum customers lose right now
The loss of Disney networks means the loss of ESPN, ABC (including the Disney-owned affiliate ABC11 serving the Raleigh and Durham market), FX, National Geographic and many other networks.
Charlotte’s ABC affiliate, WSOC, is owned by Cox Media Group, and shouldn’t be affected by the outage.
The most pain may be felt by college football fans and NFL fans. The college season started last weekend and the NFL regular season games start this weekend.
Not the only ongoing outage in Raleigh market
Raleigh’s CBS affiliate CBS 17 has been dark for AT&T/DirecTV customers since the beginning of July because of a contract dispute between that company and Nexstar, which owns CBS 17.
The contract dispute is also over retransmission or carriage fees. The outage impacts about 10 million customers and more than 150 local TV stations, forcing them “to go dark on one of the country’s largest pay-TV providers,” Deadline reported. Nexstar stations affected nationwide include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and CW affiliates.
This story will be updated as events progress.
This story was originally published August 31, 2023 at 9:03 PM.
