YouTube TV is still working to potentially bring back ABC, ESPN, and the rest of the Disney channels to the service. But as we reported earlier this week, Disney is being very stubborn and wants to force YouTube TV to include Disney+ and ESPN Unlimited in their carriage deal, which YouTube TV doesn’t want to do, as that would drastically increase the monthly price.
YouTube has now published the email it sent to Disney, to try and bring back Disney’s most notable channels – ABC and ESPN. This email was in response to Disney’s proposal to bring back ABC to YouTube TV for 24 hours during the election earlier this week.
YouTube says in the email, “We propose immediately restoring the Disney channels that our customers watch: ABC and the ESPN networks, while we continue to negotiate. Those are the channels that people want.”
YouTube also threw some shade at Disney in this email: “as you know from the many content disputes you’ve been part of, customers don’t want companies fighting and content blackouts.” Virtually every provider that carries Disney’s nearly two dozen channels, have had content disputes whenever their carriage agreements expire.
Will ABC and ESPN be back online for College Football this weekend?
At the time of writing this, neither ABC nor ESPN is back up on YouTube TV. And we don’t expect it to be up for this Saturday’s slate of college football games. Disney is already suffering the consequences of this move.
Last Saturday, ABC and ESPN had a trio of SEC games, including five ranked teams, which averaged 5.7 million viewers. Oklahoma and Tennessee was ABC’s lowest Saturday primetime audience of the season, and the only game in the network’s 7:30PM ET time slot that drew fewer than 6 million viewers (only 4.8m).
But this is benefiting Fox. With Big Noon Kickoff having seen 7.19 million viewers for Penn State vs Ohio State. Now, this is down from last year, when both teams were in the top 5, this year Penn State has spiraled and might not even make a bowl game. So still seeing over 7 million for a noon game is pretty impressive.
How much longer can this last, before Disney caves? Who knows.
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