Disney Pulls ESPN Off Air In Dispute With DirecTV: Customers FURIOUS

Disney ESPN ABC and FX channels have all gone dark for about 11 million Direct TV customers let's talk about that on that Park Place hello I am Jonas J Campbell an investigative reporter for that Park Place and here with me is uh back from back from Palm Springs of the great Vash guy Vash are you feeling tanner than usual I'm feeling very tan feeling very good man you know what Jonas it was very interesting being out in Palm Springs actually it was cooler over there than it is here in Arizona that I did not expect so definitely got some fun in the sun there had a blast but boy oh boy if we had Direct TV out there we wouldn't be able to watch any games apparently yeah if I if I were looking forward to Monday Night Football and I were a direct to V customer I would be pretty upset today this out of deadline it's being covered all over the place but we're going to deadline for this one Disney networks go dark on Direct TV in Carriage dispute this is about whether not the Clydesdales are superior to whatever they got going down Main Street USA of course Disney's networks including ABC and ESPN have gone dark across Direct TV beginning another major carriage impass in the challenged pay TV business uh otherwise known as cable the dispute between the companies had been intensifying in recent days despite the parties being at the table negotiating ahead of Sunday's expiration for their current contract Direct TV has shrunk in recent years but it remains a leading cable operator with about 11 million subscribers across traditional satellite cable and the internet delivered Direct TV stream service there's a nice ad for Direct TV stream right there our contract with this channel has expired a message to viewers read on the affected networks we appreciate your patience while we negotiate to offer you greater Choice flexibility and value Disney responded Direct TV chose to deny millions of subscribers access to our content just as we head into the final week of the US Open in gear up for college football and the opening of the NFL season while we're open to operating Direct TV flexibility and terms which we've extended to other Distributors we will not enter into an agreement that under values our portfolio of television channels and programs we invest significantly to deliver the number one brands in entertainment news and sports because that's what our viewers expect and deserve we are Ur Direct TV to do what's in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming Vash are you a Direct TV customer by any chance no no not a Direct TV customer in fact I haven't had cable in oh about 20 some years so I have no idea I can't even put myself in the shoes of somebody and especially too apparently this was right before the USC LSU game which is a huge kind of intercon thing thing there between the Big 10 and SEC huge major thing a lot of people wanted to tune into that Sport and then right before the game boom blackout right there the social media reactions were not kind Jonas yeah well I can imagine people get pretty angry when they can't watch the game that they have paid specifically to watch now whether or not they bought an entire bundle in order to watch that specific game that really is immaterial here but but but I think that's what Disney knows people are willing to pay thousands of dollars uh if not tens of thousands of dollars over the course of their life in order to keep up with their favorite sportsball team that's the entire business model for ESPN now of course this is also why Jimmy pataro gets brought up as the possible next CEO of the Disney Company I personally don't see that happening I don't see him as as Disney CEO material whatever he's doing with the ESPN right now they seem to be making their money although there's some pretty massive contracts that they've signed inorder order to keep ESPN going like this NBA deal which I I I don't follow Sports on a regular basis here so forgive me I might get a couple of details wrong here in covering this but that NBA deal has grown to billions and billions of dollars more than it was the last time also you'll notice that the Spectrum and Charter deal that's the same company that's why we call them that way they said we don't want all of your channels and they hacked off about eight of the 18 channels that Disney had them paying for and said no no no no we only want these 10 and we want you giving Disney Plus for free we've covered this previously on the channel here I assumed earlier that this was something where Bob Iger was wanting them to add Disney plus here so that Disney can add 11 million subscribers on the next earnings call but what this sounds like here because Direct TV is actually trying to make their case to customers they want customers to know exactly what is going on here so this is unbundled disney.com DirecTV is I guess technically campaigning here to their customers as to why they are fighting with Disney they're saying it's bloated bundles programmers like Disney want you to pay for all their networks even if you don't want them limited options programmers shift quality programming to their streaming services forcing you to chase your favorite shows in sports it's very true they're saying Disney is harming consumers now this is the Judgment area here moving your content from one Disney controlled platform to another making you purchase them all they're saying they're pulling things from ABC and FX and things like that and putting it on Disney plus Disney is shutting down its apps that Direct TV customers pay to use this is the end of the TV everywhere logins that used to be such an important thing for customers FX now which used to have all Fox programming on it that used to be the exclusive place to watch The Simpsons if you didn't catch it on regular television Disney now used to be an excellent app and now that's going away Nat gov there as well they're forcing consumers to pay twice for the same content across multiple services to drive viewers to Disney plus ESPN and Hulu yes that's uh very true everything that was on cable is moving to Disney plus I'll also point out that most of the shows that were exclusive to Disney plus not doing so well for Disney Plus at the moment so all they have left is that content that was made for traditional television Vash you have anything you want to throw in here at this point I don't disagree with anything that's being said here by Direct TV I think this is a very astute observation by them and and the way they're going about it trying to inform consumers about what's going on and I think it's an interesting tact we didn't really see that with a charter we had some statements but not really a website explaining everything that's actually going on there and they're 100% correct they are taking off I mean Jon we've been covering this for a long long time I think you and culture actually have detailed this quite well they have taken program off of Disney Channel and all of their linear networks and so forth brought a lot of that programming to Disney plus and as this uh web portal here actually mentions that you had to go chasing for your shows I think that's exactly true but we've seen the resource allocation really change here in profound ways at the detriment really of Disney plus subscribers well I mean linear for sure but even Disney plus subscribers CU we've seen the quality of those shows diminish yep yep I totally agree and the only thing coming out on Disney Plus at this point is remnants of cable shows they've stopped spending on these huge big budget uh shows that no one is watching which is is the right call by the way they should not pay $200 million to do a show like the Acolyte and we don't have the final figures on the acolyte right now10 million is the last confirmed amount we have for a show like that and it barely showed up on the neelon ratings only in the streaming only did it show up I find this interesting you read that statement before by combined to what Dana Walden Alan burkman and Jimmy pararo right we know the CEO race and what it actually looks like isn't it interesting Jonas how they were the ones that actually put the statement out and not Bob Iger himself I find that odd because usually Bob Iger or the CEO of the company would be in charge of you know these cable contracts and these disputes and these Carriage deals and so forth why wasn't Iger the one making a statement like this usually he doesn't shy away from the Limelight even in instances like this uh that's fascinating you know you bring up a very good point here as Bob Iger has said he's obsessed with finding his replacement and that he would like to retire maybe this is the narrative shift that they have here at the company now Alan Bergman I I'm not sure what he does as far as as the television side of things goes he is the co-chair of Disney entertainment here I would think he's more on the Disney plus side of the two here because uh he's he seems to be the film division guy maybe that's not as clear-cut as H we were thinking here Dana Walden likes to take a lot of credit for what is going on in the television division because she is known as as being in charge of things like ABC and FX and things like that Dana Walden is the person that we think is the most likely to get the CEO seat at this point Jimmy pataro he's in charge of the thing that caus as anyone to care to buy cable at this point because ESPN is essentially the last vestage of once that all moves to streaming we will then know just what the actual equilibrium for cable is without ESPN of course cable is much more reliable when it comes to things like this but once live sports fully goes to streaming we will actually know what this will end up being like the way that there are still enough people that listen to radio that it can be a sustainable model on some level we get to know what the final resting place resting point I should say instead of the funeral language on it resting point of cable and linear broadcast is here so I don't know I think Bob Iger is tired of his name coming up for all of the bad things because uh he's become a punching bag in the news for maybe some opportunistic channels out there I think we call balls and Strikes on what Bob Iger is up to here we maybe have not focused on Josh tomorrow as much as we should have here when covering the parks Vash what do you think I find this very bizarre you know usually like I said before Bob Iger would be handling these things do you think it might be a test maybe to see who really handles this and in what Manner they do and see if they're really CEO material by handling this it could could have been hey look listen I'm going to give this assignment to the three of you you figure it out maybe they all band together and wrote this statement just to kind of put something out uh with all of them combined and not really uh elbow anybody out of the way to make themselves look better than than what they are I don't know I I think I find this very very interesting we've heard these three names of the four described in the media uh at nauseum and then all of a sudden three of their names attached to this whole situation here I just find it very very bizarre I find it very very curious you know nothing happens SP L J this is all usually pretty coordinated and I think as you and culture pointed out here I think even this Carriage dispute there might be some maybe 40 chess on both sides I think you're probably right and just in the interest of fairness here first of all when everyone is responsible no one is responsible so putting it to three people makes it so that they don't necessarily go after one person I also want to point out that Disney has their own page here to talk about this they say we know you care about your favorite TV channels and shows ABC ESPN free form I'm not sure why this is here Disney Channel also not sure why this is here FX and National Geographic if we go by the Numbers it's pretty much ESPN and then the rest of it uh ABC obviously a broadcast channel FX I I think they're doing all right in the ratings here is the difference between Direct TV and Disney's if you go over here you can click on a button and see all of the other options some of them directly owned by Disney at this point point that you could go with for other options here so I think this is a little bit of uh Disney maybe Disney is saying they don't need the cable companies anymore obviously uh Direct TV is playing hard ball with them and Disney cannot really afford to lose 11 million subscribers at this point it seems like Erse which I believe this is AT&T yeah AT&T Direct TV they're the same company here they're trying to make it clear that not only is Direct TV not playing ball with them but you have other options here so not only is Disney playing a little harder here with Direct TV than they have with spectrum and uh Charter in the past I think that they are concerned about what will happen when Comcast who is the largest player in the cable space and does not need Disney in the way that Disney needs Direct TV I think that's going to be the interesting Next Step here I don't know when these channels are going to come back on Direct TV I do anticipate that they will will come back because I think that's the end of Direct TV if they don't have ESPN channels back on air for Monday Night Football I see I don't even care what it is myself I just know that the sports fans want their channels back uh V is there anything else we need to say before we wrap this up could you imagine by the way attempting to attempting to negotiate this deal and it's like well we don't need you we have venue and then the judge in that newor case comes out and says well you know temporary injunction for that that I'll probably undercut them a little bit during this whole thing but um like you said Jonas they they don't want to set president with this they already s a lot of president with the charter deal uh they don't want to be caught flat-footed like they were on that one and find themselves in worse or unenviable position when they're looking at uh negotiating with Comcast so that's that's a big de right here yeah I totally agree uh let's throw this to our commenters though what do you think about this are you a direct TV consumer here if ESPN has their way are you going to be subscribing to what sounds like it's going to be a $50 streaming service in order to just get ESPN and throw out the rest of cable in order to do it Bob Iger has said when talking to CNBC has said that they're going to price this thing as if they're done with the middle as if they're done with the casuals and they just want the hardcore sports fans so they're going to price it at a point where they know that they are going to make just as much money off of onethird of the customers so $30 is the bottom of the barrel there more like 50 maybe even 60 what is the price point that you would pay for ESPN don't tell them but let us know your thoughts on that in the comment section down below like this video If you like this video and stay tuned to that Parkplace for all the news that should be fun thanks for watching that Parkplace news for more information consider checking out www.th parkplace.com and don't forget to subscribe share like and send this out on your Faceook favorite social media accounts