Well, we all saw this coming. At midnight last night, YouTube TV sent an email to all its subscribers saying the company was unable to reach an agreement with Disney, and until such an agreement is reached, ESPN, ABC and the rest of the Disney owned channels won’t be available to watch. Good news though, if they’re not available for an extended period of time, we’ll all get a $20 credit on our accounts.
Whenever these carriage disputes happen, we’re all supposed to pick a side. ESPN had lead anchor Scott Van Pelt film a statement telling people to go to Keep My Networks, which is a website where you can easily contact YouTube TV and complain. The Google-owned YouTube TV, conversely, released a statement saying it won’t agree to terms that disadvantage customers while benefitting Disney’s TV products.
They’re fighting over money because of course they are. It’s always about money, though this time the specifics of the fight over money are so stupid that they could only possibly occur within 2025’s hybrid cable and streaming model that sucks for absolutely everyone that’s not a mega-corporation.
In short, Disney just launched a streaming service. No, not Disney+. No, not Hulu. They launched another service called ESPN Unlimited. Essentially, it lets you watch the ESPN channels live, plus a lot more games it has the rights to air, plus additional programming from its extensive catalog. When it was first announced, ESPN’s own website put out an FAQ style article which explained that if you have ESPN through cable providers like YouTube TV, you’ll get access to the app as part of your subscription. If you don’t, you’ll have to pay $30 a month or subscribe to some kind of cheaper bundle.
Sounds like a big win for customers that already have ESPN, right? Nope. After locking up the rights to air all of WWE’s premium live events exclusively on this new streaming service, as well as some additional programming, ESPN announced that some cable providers and their subscribers wouldn’t get access to it until they renegotiated their rates. In a win for corporate synergy, the Disney-owned Hulu + Live TV was able to come to terms with itself to carry ESPN Unlimited.
YouTube TV was sorted among the companies that would need to negotiate their rates, despite ESPN having previously said otherwise. They still haven’t done that, and last night, the original contract expired, meaning not only do YouTube TV subscribers not get access to this new ESPN app, now they don’t even have access to the OG ESPN channel.
I’m not here to tell you who is right and who is wrong. I haven’t been on any of these negotiation calls, and I have no idea if what Disney is proposing is fair. What I am here to tell you is this standoff between two of the largest companies in the world, with all of us stuck in the middle, is a perfect representation of why the current system is a nightmare for customers. It’s an absolute freaking nightmare that has somehow gotten more expensive, complicated and frustrating than cable television.
It feels like we can’t go a single month without one of the streaming services raising their rates… or adding commercials… or cancelling shows people like because they’re too expensive. It seems we can’t go a single month without a professional sports league announcing it’ll be airing games on a different platform that requires an additional subscription. It seems we can’t go a single month without everything paradoxically getting both more expensive and worse.
I’m not picking a side. I’m furious at Disney. I’m furious at Google. I’m furious I’m giving two of the largest companies in the world literally thousands of dollars a year, and because they can’t figure out how to split it up, I can’t watch Monday Night Football. Figure it out.
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