Charter Communications, the parent company of Spectrum Cable, and Disney are currently in a spat over access fees. Failing to come to an agreement, Disney pulled its programming from Spectrum on the last day of August; the company’s TV channels, including ESPN, will be gone for the 15 million people who subscribe to Charter’s Spectrum service as the US Open and college football are underway.
According to a presentation provided to Charter investors prior to a Friday conference call, Disney was hoping to secure a long-term deal that would add their channels into packages where they are not currently. The presentation called the offering “too expensive” and said that it doesn’t “meet consumer needs.”
“We had to draw a line in the sand on [the customer’s] behalf,” Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said on the conference call.
This all comes as Disney’s streaming service continues to bleed money, with Disney+ operating at a reported $512 million in the red, in the company’s most recently closed fiscal quarter.
Charter is positioning the blackout of Disney’s channels as a fight over the future of TV. The company took the unusual step of scheduling an early-morning news conference on Friday to say it tried and failed to persuade Disney to agree to a “transformative deal” that would combine traditional TV packages and subscriptions to streaming apps. Disney in turn said it has “proposed creative ways to make Disney’s direct-to-consumer services available to their Spectrum TV subscribers.”
Until this is resolved, it’ll be a Disney blackout for Spectrum customers…unless they get Disney+.
