live tv and disney A deal has been reached to return Disney’s ESPN and other channels to the pay-TV provider’s customers after about a two-week blackout.
The deal coincides with this Saturday’s college football game, which will air on ABC, ESPN, SEC Network and ACC Network, as well as the Emmy Awards on ABC. CNBC earlier reported that a deal could be reached as soon as Saturday.
Disney’s network shut down on September 1 after the two sides failed to agree on fees and terms of a bundle structure. The dispute has left DirecTV’s more than 11 million customers unable to watch the U.S. Open, college football games and the season opener “Monday Night Football.”
DirecTV executives reiterated calls in the weeks leading up to the controversy and in the wake of the Disney network shutdown to be able to offer customers more streamlined, genre-specific bundles. Disney has said DirecTV’s offer did not reflect the value its network provided.
On Saturday, DirecTV and Disney said they reached an agreement that calls for “market-based terms” on pricing.
The deal also gives DirecTV the opportunity to offer a variety of genre-specific options such as sports, entertainment, kids and family, including Disney’s traditional TV networks and its streaming services Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.
DirecTV will be able to offer Disney’s streaming service on a package and a la carte basis, the company said in a press release Saturday. DirecTV also won distribution rights to Disney’s upcoming ESPN flagship direct-to-consumer streaming service, which is expected to launch in fall 2025 at no additional cost to subscribers.
The inclusion of Disney’s streaming service and ESPN’s future flagship service echoes the transmission agreement reached between the two parties Chartered Communications Disney experienced a similar outage last year. Charter and Disney reached an agreement just in time for the first week of “Monday Night Football.”
In a joint statement, DirecTV and Disney called this an “unprecedented collaboration” because it enables “customers to customize their video experience with more flexible choices.”
The blackout highlights how valuable live sports are to media companies that own the rights to broadcast games and pay-TV providers who want to broadcast them.
Since September 1, each side has accused the other of stalling on reaching a deal. DirecTV calls Disney anti-consumer, and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro calls DirecTV’s response to Disney packages “basically hypothetical.”
These companies, their customers and other business owners appear to have suffered losses due to the outage.
“We don’t want to have blackouts,” ESPN’s Pitaro told CNBC last week. “It’s not good for both parties. And certainly not good for the customers. We’re doing everything we can.”
The number of customers DirecTV lost in the dispute is not “inconsequential,” DirecTV Chief Marketing Officer Vince Torres said Thursday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference.
Torres said DirecTV offered its customers a $30 credit, funded by stopping payments to Disney immediately after the outages began.
Amid the dispute, many small business owners are also unable to offer the full range of sporting activities they normally offer. Many bars and restaurants rely on DirecTV as a commercial distributor of “Sunday Ticket” packages for NFL out-of-market games (which are not affected by the outage) and use pay TV providers to carry the rest of their television content, including ESPN.
In addition to sporting events, an outage occurred during Tuesday’s presidential debate, preventing customers in some markets from accessing Disney’s ABC broadcast network.
Disney had tried to temporarily allow DirecTV to offer that night’s ABC programming to its customers, but the pay TV provider refused. DirecTV called it a public relations drama and said it saw no need for ABC because the debate also aired on several other news networks.
In recent weeks, Venu and Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox Corporation. and Disney, which were temporarily blocked by a judge over antitrust concerns. Fubo TV station The original lawsuit was filed by DirecTV and echo starDish has since supported it.
DirectTV said last week it filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission saying Disney was not negotiating in good faith. The FCC has regulations requiring broadcast owners to do this. Saturday’s news release did not describe the status of the complaint.
The entire pay-TV bundle has been upended in recent years as customers turn to streaming services and other forms of entertainment in place of traditional structures. The shift has left a media ecosystem fragmented, with live sports — especially Disney’s ESPN — considered key to holding the industry together because of its high viewership.
DirecTV is running an advertising campaign to remind consumers that it’s more than just a satellite TV company — it also offers streaming services.
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