YouTube TV Drops Disney Channels After Contract Negotiations Fail

Alphabet’s GOOG YouTube TV has dropped more than one dozen channels owned and operated by the Walt Disney Co. DIS from its lineup after contract renewal negotiations between the companies came to naught.

What Happened: Disney’s contract with YouTube TV for its ABC-owned stations, its ESPN offerings, Disney channels, Freeform, FX networks and National Geographic channels expired on Dec. 17 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Both sides blamed the other for the failure to continue their business relationship. Disney issuing a statement insisting that it was “ready to reach an equitable agreement with Google as quickly as possible in order to minimize the inconvenience to YouTube TV viewers by restoring our networks.”

But YouTube TV issued its own statement declaring it “held good faith negotiations with Disney for several months, Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we’ve been unable to reach an equitable agreement before our existing one expired, and their channels are no longer available on YouTube TV.”

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What Happens Next: With the absence of the Disney channels from its line-up, YouTube TV announced it was decreasing its monthly subscription price from $64.99 to $49.99 as long as the Disney content was off the platform.

The spat with Disney is the latest carriage deal confrontation that YouTube TV has undertaken. Earlier in the fall, it had a similar give-and-take with Comcast Corporation’s CMCSA -0.18% NBCUniversal. The platform also settled simmering differences with Roku ROKU that resulted in YouTube TV being taken off the Roku platform.

Photo: Esther Vargas / Flickr Creative Commons