Disney\u2019s carriage fight with Google\u2019s YouTube TV is beginning to create some issues for some of the company\u2019s most popular media properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cNBC Nightly News\u201d was able to claim victory over ABC\u2019s \u2018World News Tonight\u201d last week among viewers between 25 and 54 \u2014 the demographic most coveted by advertisers. It\u2019s the first time \u201cNightly\u201d has been able to tout that distinction during the nascent tenure of its new anchor, Tom Llamas.<\/a> Meanwhile, NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d was the most-watched morning-news program last week among viewers overall, a lead normally held by ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Variety<\/p>\n The NBC News programs were able to notch those victories in part because ABC News \u201cretitled\u201d the programs last week as Disney grapples with a blackout of its properties on YouTube TV<\/a>. To ward off the effects of atypical viewing, TV networks sometimes use a different name for a show that is likely to underperform, so it\u2019s not counted in Nielsen\u2019s analysis of the show\u2019s other, properly titled episodes. ABC retitled episodes of both \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d and \u201cGMA\u201d last week, according to TV executives familiar with the matter. ABC isn\u2019t alone in its use of the technique \u2014 many of the network news divisions tap it with increasing frequency<\/a> \u2014 but such a move doesn\u2019t suggest complete confidence in a program\u2019s ability to bring in the usual audience.<\/p>\n ABC has had reason to be anxious. ABC and Disney-owned siblings like ESPN, Freeform and FX have been removed from YouTube TV since October 30, the result of an inability by the networks\u2019 corporate parent and the popular video distributor to come to a new carriage deal. The main sticking point is price \u2014 Disney is asking for rate hikes to which Google isn\u2019t willing to agree. At the same time, Google has been trying to push TV companies to accept new tiers of programming that could result in some subscribers opting to drop receiving certain networks to keep bills manageable.<\/p>\n Approximately 10 million people subscribe to YouTube TV. ABC News declined to comment.<\/p>\n NBC News said Wednesday that \u201cNightly\u201d won an average of 929,000 viewers between 25 and 54 for the five days ended November 7, compared with 883,000 for \u201cWorld News Tonight.\u201d During a typical week, \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d prevails over its evening-news rivals in all categories. The ABC News program shed 20,000 viewers in the demographic from the week prior, according to Nielsen data, and was down in overall audience as well, though it maintained its usual position in that category.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, \u201cToday\u201d captured an average of 2.81 million total viewers, according to data from Nielsen, compared with 2.72 million for \u201cGMA.\u201d \u201cToday\u201d has generated some momentum in recent weeks, notching the most-watched lead in six weeks of the last ten.<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disney\u2019s carriage fight with Google\u2019s YouTube TV is beginning to create some issues for some of the company\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,3494,75,192,27859,84677,127262,348,127261,127260,45760],"class_list":{"0":"post-279126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-disney","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-google","13":"tag-nbc-news","14":"tag-nbc-nightly-news","15":"tag-news-program","16":"tag-tv","17":"tag-tv-networks","18":"tag-world-news-tonight","19":"tag-youtube-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}