As Disney’s carriage dispute with YouTube TV stretches past its first week, the media giant’s senior leadership has accused the Google-owned platform of continuing to “insist on receiving preferential terms that are below market”and making “few concessions.”
In a memo to staff on Friday, Disney Entertainment co-chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said they’ve offered a deal that would cost less overall than the terms of its recently expired contract.
They added that the terms offered are “fair” and “in-line with the more than 500 other distributors that have renewed their agreements since last summer, including the top distributors, who are far larger than YouTube TV.” Additionally, Disney says it offered programming packages tailored to sports fans, entertainment fans, kids and families to offer more flexibility and value.
“Rather than compete on a level playing field, Google’s YouTube TV has approached these negotiations as if it were the only player in the game,” the trio added. “It goes without saying that the reason so many consumers value our programming above others is because we invest in the best talent, creators and content in the world, and we cannot allow anyone to undercut our ability to do so.”
Walden, Bergman and Pitaro said they would continue to “work diligently to find common ground” with YouTube TV and keep its employees informed as it has more news to share.
“We know how difficult this situation is for the YouTube TV customers we serve, and for all of you who provide the sports programming, entertainment, news and live events that our fans know and love,” the memo concluded. “Thank you for the incredible work you do each and every day and for staying focused on maintaining such a high bar throughout this difficult situation.”
A YouTube TV spokesperson told TheWrap that Disney is “resorting to their old tactics like leaking documents to the press, negotiating in public through their paid talent and misrepresenting the facts including from the deals they’ve offered and taking credit for our product proposals.”
“Our team stands ready to make a fair agreement in line with their deals with other distributors and we encourage Disney to come to the table and do what’s best for our mutual customers,” the spokesperson added.
The tech giant said that Disney is asking them for a rate above what Charter and DirecTV pay for the ABC networks and to pay more for their content than what they charge the Hulu and Fubo, which recently completed its merger with Hulu + Live TV.
YouTube added that it isn’t asking for better rates, but for size-based “most favored nations,” a contractual promise that a programmer will not offer better terms to any other distributor without offering the same terms them. It also disputed that the tailored programming packages areDisney’s proposal, noting that its a topic they’ve had conversations with all of its partners about.
With over 8 million subscribers, YouTube TV is one of the largest pay TV operators alongside Charter Communications, Comcast and DirecTV. It is the largest virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD), followed by Hulu + Live TV and Fubo, which combined total nearly 6 million subscribers in North America.
More to come…
