{"id":264425,"date":"2025-11-01T06:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T06:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/264425\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T06:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T06:49:09","slug":"youtube-tv-says-disney-unnecessarily-aggressive-in-talks-before-blackout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/264425\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube TV Says Disney “Unnecessarily Aggressive” In Talks Before Blackout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDisney<\/a> has been \u2018unnecessarily aggressive and assertive\u201d in carriage talks with YouTube TV<\/a>, with an \u201cantiquated view\u201d of the economics of pay-TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the assessment of a YouTube executive involved in the negotiations, who agreed to share perspective from inside the tech giant with Deadline on the condition that their name and job title would not be attached.<\/p>\n

\n\tABC, ESPN and other Disney networks went dark Thursday night on YouTube TV<\/a>, leaving 10 million subscribers without access to programming like college football and other major sports. Earlier Friday, Disney Entertainment co-chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, along with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, accused YouTube TV of trying to \u201celiminate competition\u201d<\/a> and \u201cdevalue the very content that helped them build their service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDating back to its founding in 2017, the YouTube executive recalled, YouTube TV had sought to \u201csuper-serve the consumer\u201d with a bundle of channels delivered \u201cin a streaming<\/a> package, without all the baggage of traditional pay-TV.\u201d YouTube had \u201cjust come out of the Viacom situation (a $1 billion lawsuit filed in 2007 and ultimately settled out of court in 2014) and we wanted to establish great relationships with media companies and broadcast partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBecause of its determination to deliver pay-TV in a different way, however, YouTube has increasingly clashed with traditional media companies, including four prior carriage fights in 2025 alone. One programmer, TelevisaUnivision<\/a>, has been dark on YouTube TV since late September. The YouTube executive told Deadline that Disney was not being reasonable to expect steep carriage fee increases despite the fact that many of the networks have seen \u201cflat-ish\u201d viewing in recent years on YouTube TV.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are aspects of their portfolio that are doing well on our platform,\u201d especially sports, the exec added. \u201cBut remember, they have a very broad portfolio of channels where viewership on many networks is in decline or non-existent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite those viewership trends, the executive continued, \u201cThey still have this very antiquated view that the customer should be forced to pay for the full portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile YouTube TV, in just eight years, has vaulted to the No. 3 ranking among all pay-TV providers (and will likely soon eclipse Comcast and Charter to become No. 1), Disney is giving up on its stake in that market. Earlier this week, as the carriage talks were going down to the wire, the company announced the closing of its acquisition of Fubo<\/a>, giving it 6 million subscribers across Fubo and Hulu + Live TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tA Disney executive familiar with the negotiations denies that the media giant has looked to use Fubo and Hulu Live as leverage, saying YouTube TV is \u201cintentionally misrepresenting the situation.\u201d As to the \u201cantiquated\u201d approach to pricing, the Disney exec adds that the company has \u201cprovided genre-based services that lower consumer costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey frequently tell us in negotiations that they don\u2019t care if it goes to a drop because they have those two,\u201d the YouTube executive said. Disney and YouTube TV had a blackout on the way to a renewal in 2021, and Disney has had similar clashes with Sling TV (2022), Charter (2023) and DirecTV (2024). The Charter battle, which resulted in a 10-day blackout and ultimately a game-changing agreement dropping some linear network carriage but bolstering Disney+ and Hulu, got the entire industry\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHighlighting Charter is really important,\u201d the YouTube exec said, though the YouTube environment is different in some respects from a cable and broadband provider like Charter\u2019s. Still, the executive says YouTube is committed to try to \u201cpartner with them to grow the size of their streaming portfolio.\u201d (The Disney exec says YouTube \u201cdeclined the same terms as Charter and other major distributors.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tESPN\u2019s recently launched service, whose Unlimited tier offers more than a dozen linear networks as well as programming from 7-year-old streaming outlet ESPN+, is a key strategic priority for Disney. But it has become a new ingredient in already-complex carriage discussions, and two months after launch it is not offered as a free add-on to some major pay-TV services.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about whether an agreement would include ESPN access the YouTube executive said, \u201cWe\u2019ve talked to them about investing with them in helping it grow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disney has been \u2018unnecessarily aggressive and assertive\u201d in carriage talks with YouTube TV, with an \u201cantiquated view\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,89867,3716,66294,7382,72175],"class_list":{"0":"post-264425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-carriage-dispute","10":"tag-disney","11":"tag-pay-tv","12":"tag-streaming","13":"tag-youtube-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}