YouTube TV And Disney Agree To New Carriage Deal, Subscribers Won't Miss College Football Playoffs

After failed contract negotiations led Alphabet’s GOOG YouTube TV to remove Walt Disney Co. DIS networks from its service on Dec. 17 at 11:59 p.m. ET, the live TV streaming service has announced that the carriage dispute has been resolved.

What Happened: YouTube TV and Disney have agreed to a new deal that will restore access to a variety of Disney networks on the streaming platform.

YouTube TV made the announcement on Twitter.

We're happy to announce that we've reached a deal with Disney and have already started to restore access to channels like ESPN and FX, and Disney recordings that were previously in your Library. Your local ABC station will also be turning on throughout the day.

— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) December 19, 2021

When the Disney deal expired, YouTube TV subscribers were set to receive a discounted rate of $49.99 a month. The standard monthly rate is now being reestablished, although customers will receive a one-time discount.

Your price will revert to $64.99, but all impacted members will still receive a one-time $15 discount. As always, we thank you for your membership and keep a lookout for an email with more details from us.

— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) December 19, 2021

Disney issued a statement confirming the agreement. “We are pleased to announce that after a brief disruption, we have reached a new distribution agreement with Google’s YouTube TV for continued carriage of our portfolio of networks,” the statement reads.

“We appreciate Google’s collaboration to reach fair terms that are consistent with the market, and we’re thrilled that our robust lineup of live sports and news plus kids, family and general entertainment programming is in the process of being restored to YouTube TV subscribers across the country,” Disney said in the statement.

Why It Matters: The Disney networks impacted by the agreement include ESPN, FX, Freeform and National Geographic along with several large-market ABC-owned stations.

If a deal had not been reached quickly, then YouTube TV subscribers may have been unable to watch ESPN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast of the College Football Playoff semifinal games. Last year's games each drew more than 19 million viewers and was ESPN’s third-biggest viewing day of all time.

YouTube TV surpassed 3 million subscribers as of fall 2020, according to Google parent Alphabet. Although some Wall Street analysts believe the number has grown to more than 4 million, ranking YouTube TV among the top 10 pay-TV distributors of any kind.

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