YouTube TV’s biggest story of 2025 was its showdown with Disney
YouTube TV’s biggest story of 2025 was its showdown with Disney
YouTube TV subscribers lost access to Disney-owned channels for two weeks in 2025, but the settling of the carriage dispute led to an important breakthrough for the streamer.
YouTube TV executives probably don’t go around calling their platform the Netflix of live TV streaming services, but they probably could. In 2025, YouTube TV surpassed 10 million subscribers, far more than services like Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, or Sling TV. Keeping the price of YouTube TV under $90 per month has undoubtedly helped it retain subscribers, but 2025 was a fairly rough autumn for the service.
In 2025, YouTube TV had to negotiate new carriage deals with Disney, Fox, and NBCUniversal — three of the largest programmers in the United States. Things started out tough for YouTube TV, as it came close to a blackout of Fox channels before agreeing to a last-minute deal with that company. The streamer kept its momentum going by settling terms with NBCU, but things didn’t go so well in its negotiations with Disney.
After weeks of closed-door negotiations came to nothing, Disney-owned channels like ABC, Disney Channel, FX, National Geographic, and others went dark on YouTube TV on Oct. 31. At the time, it was assumed that key programming like college and professional football games appearing on Disney-owned channels would create incentive for both sides to make the dispute a short one.
Instead, the blackout of Disney-owned channels on YouTube TV lasted for weeks. Unlike most such disputes, in which viewers tend to side with the programmer, YouTube TV saw a strong swell of customer support as the days dragged by with no resolution in sight.
Eventually, cooler heads prevailed in the dispute, and on Nov. 14 the two sides announced that they had reached a deal to restore Disney channels on YouTube TV. The pact included an important provision: the right for YouTube TV to begin distributing ABC, ESPN, and other networks in genre-themed channel packages that will come in at a lower price point than the streamer’s core plan.
Disney already allows DIRECTV to use its networks in such plans, but YouTube TV is operating on a different plane of existence in terms of audience size. And it didn’t take long for the service to announce that it was bringing genre packs to market; YouTube TV confirmed in December that a sports-themed package was coming to viewers at some point in 2026.
YouTube TV is already the biggest live TV streamer in terms of customers on the market, and the introduction of genre packs could launch it into another stratosphere altogether. YouTube TV’s genre-focused plans will create plenty more stories in 2026, but they couldn’t have come into existence at all without the participation of ABC and ESPN. The sports content on those channels alone is too voluminous to even bother making a genre pack without, and the carriage deal that allowed them to be included is the biggest story of the year for YouTube TV.
YouTube TV
YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service with more than 60 channels for $82.99/month. This plan includes local channels 32 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs) in select markets. The base plan includes more than 100 live channels, including major broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, as well as popular cable channels such as ESPN, CNN, FX, USA Network, and TNT. Local channels are included in most markets, making YouTube TV a full replacement for traditional cable for many viewers.