Disney carriage row continues as YouTube rebuffs ABC election request
Disney and YouTube remain at loggerheads
Disney and YouTube remain in a standoff over a carriage deal, with the video streaming giant declining the Mouse House’s proposal to temporarily restore ABC for coverage of today’s US elections.
Disney’s channels including ABC, FX, National Geographic and ESPN went dark on pay service YouTube TV in roughly 10 million homes late last week after the two media giants failed to agree new distribution terms.
The reportedly contentious negotiations, which had an October 30 deadline, have sparked a war of words between the companies, with each accusing the other of acting in bad faith.
YouTube TV said Disney’s proposed offer would increase prices for its subscribers and benefit Disney’s own live TV services such as Hulu + Live TV, which recently merged with Fubo, while Disney accused YouTube TV of being unwilling to pay fair rates.
The Mouse House has since accused YouTube of trying to “eliminate competition” with YouTube countering that Disney is being “unnecessarily aggressive.”
Most recently, YouTube has rejected Disney’s request to restore ABC for Election Day today as a matter of “public interest” while the companies remain in an impasse over a new carriage deal. However, in a blog post. YouTube yesterday shared the email it sent to Disney leadership saying no to its request.
“We agree that the right priority here is to give customers what they want. As you know from the many content disputes you’ve been part of, customers don’t want companies fighting and content blackouts. But unfortunately, your proposal would permit us to return Disney’s ABC stations only for a day and will cause customer confusion among those who may briefly see ABC on YouTube TV only to lose it again shortly after,” YouTube said.
The Google-owned streaming platform added that customers have “plenty of other options” to access election news across other broadcast stations, news networks and on YouTube itself.
“In fact, on the last two US election days, the vast majority of tuned-in YouTube TV subscribers chose not to watch ABC,” it added.
“Publicly resorting to the same tactic that Disney relied on in past disputes fails to acknowledge the distinction between YouTube and other distribution platforms. As you know, Disney can continue to livestream news information on the ABC News YouTube page, which has 19.1m subscribers, and its ABC local stations can also do so on their YouTube pages,” YouTube wrote.
“To truly achieve what is best for our mutual customers, we propose immediately restoring the Disney channels that our customers watch: ABC and the ESPN networks, while we continue to negotiate. Those are the channels that people want.
“If you agree with our proposal and give us approval, we can get our operational teams together and get these channels live in hours. Let us know how you’d like to proceed. More importantly, let’s get a fair deal done so we can get back to providing our mutual customers with the content they want. Thank you.”
It comes after YouTube has had similar disputes with NBCUniversal, Fox, Paramount and Spanish-language network Univision.
