In September 2019, a five-year contract was signed that provides retransmission revenues for The Walt Disney Company out of DirecTV for the transmission of its radio and cable television channels. Now, four days before the contract expires, there are strong rumors in the industry that suggest that the two sides are far apart on a new agreement.

As of September 1, a “blackout” will apply by law to all Disney properties, including ESPN And ABC Channels were available to all DirecTV customers.

The potential loss of the Disney-owned channels comes just as the NCAA college football season has already begun. Last weekend, ESPN broadcast Florida State University’s loss to Georgia Tech live from Dublin, Ireland.

Then there is Monday Night Football, which begins on September 9th.

While there is still plenty of time to sign an agreement before Labor Day weekend, there is plenty of speculation about how a new deal might be signed, given the significant differences in the OTT space compared to fall 2019. For one, Disney is one of three companies looking to launch Venu Sports, an OTT platform that Fubo has successfully blocked from launching until its legal battle against WBD, Disney and FOX in federal court is resolved. Second, OTT packages that include Hulu and Disney+ could be viewed by DirecTV as an existential threat to its own potential customer base.

According to Bloomberg, a central point of the dispute is how much DirecTV pays to carry ESPN – historically one of the most expensive fees for an MVPD.

The Bloomberg report also suggests that DirecTV is considering “skinny bundles” with select ABC/Disney programming options to offer a discount to those who only want certain genres of Disney-owned channels.

At 1 p.m. Pacific Time, an ABC spokesman responded to RBR+TVBRfor comment by referring it to a Disney corporate representative. That person declined to comment and referred us to a quote from Disney’s President of Platform Distribution, Justin Connolly, to both Deadline And The Hollywood Reporter.

A DirecTV spokesman said RBR+TVBR to an “open letter” dated August 21 from DirecTV’s Chief Content Officer Robert Thun. In the article, he explains that at DirecTV, “we can create a smooth transition to a model that gives consumers more choice, control and value to complement programmers’ DTC offerings. Distributors like DirecTV have been asking programmers for the flexibility to launch leaner packages for years. It’s high time we worked together to capitalize on this sea of ​​opportunity.”

Meanwhile, the DirecTV spokesman points out that ABC Owned Stations are “the smallest group of owners and operators with only eight stations.”

However, they also include some of the most watched local television channels in the country, and they consist of:

• WABC-7 in New York
• KABC-7 in Los Angeles
• KGO-7 in San Francisco-Oakland
• WLS-7 in Chicago
• WPVI-6 in Philadelphia
• WTVD-11 in Raleigh-Durham
• KTRK-13 ​​in Houston
• KFSN-30 at Fresno-Visalia-Merced

The new retransmission agreement would apply to all satellite, streaming and U-Verse customers, except New York and Philadelphia, where U-Verse is not available.

The last major retransmission agreement with Disney was signed in September 2023. After Disney had no access to all Disney-owned channels for around 11 days, a new retransmission agreement was signed between the company and Charter Communication has arrived and released the offers to all Spectrum MVPD customers.