Blackout Looks Likely as Disney and DIRECTV Deadline Approaches
Blackout Looks Likely as Disney and DIRECTV Deadline Approaches
Disney-owned channels could go dark on DIRECTV services on Sunday if a deal isn’t struck by then.
Update: Disney-owned channels are no longer available on DIRECTV STREAM. Read the latest.
It’s looking more and more as if Disney and DIRECTV won’t have a new deal by Sunday. That’s reportedly the deadline for the two companies to make a new carriage agreement for Disney-owned channels like ABC, ESPN, Freeform, and others, and DIRECTV went into the talks with some fairly major items on its wishlist. A new report from The Wrap has details on Disney’s position in the negotiations, which don’t exactly point to the likelihood of a new deal happening in the next 48 hours.
Key Details:
- Disney says it’s amenable to including access to on-demand streamers for DIRECTV customers, similar to last year’s deal with Charter.
- DIRECTV’s desire to create smaller packages lacks specifics, according to Disney officials.
- Disney says DIRECTV should focus its efforts on improving marketing and customer engagement.
According to The Wrap, Disney platform distribution president Justin Connolly did not have the most encouraging updates to offer.
“We’re engaged in a fairly consistent and steady back and forth with DirecTV, although I’d say we’ve got a fairly sizable gap on a number of fronts in terms of where we are in the negotiation,” Connolly said.
DIRECTV went into its current round of negotiations with Disney with the goal of making big changes to the way it offers channel packages. Last September, a bitter carriage fight with Charter Communications left Disney with no other choice but to bundle free access to Disney+ alongside Spectrum cable plans, and the Mouse House says it’s offered similar options to DIRECTV.
Is On-Demand Streaming Access Enough for DIRECTV?
As DIRECTV Chief Content Officer Rob Thun told me earlier this month, including on-demand streaming access with DIRECTV packages doesn’t necessarily make sense for its customer base. Blanket access to Disney-owned streaming services doesn’t provide the kind of flexibility that Thun wants to provide for DIRECTV customers since viewers who subscribe to a DIRECTV service do so for different reasons. Customers who watch DIRECTV for news don’t tend to watch a lot of kids’ shows, and wouldn’t have much need for a Disney+ subscription, for example.
“Antiquated requirements force pay TV customers to subscribe to many channels they may not watch, which have yielded ‘fat bundles,’” Thun wrote in a blog post in late August. “At the same time, programmers have reserved flexible genre-based offerings solely for themselves, eroding the price-value proposition for pay TV customers by shifting the best programming to [streaming] services while raising programming fees on pay TV.”
Thun explained to me that DIRECTV would rather have permission to create smaller channel packages using Disney-owned networks, crafted around genres like news, movies, sports, and more. Thun couldn’t confirm that DIRECTV was seeking those options from Disney directly, since carriage negotiations are confidential. But after we spoke, more reporting emerged to support the notion that DIRECTV was indeed asking for permission to create these packages using some Disney-owned channels.
Disney says it’s open to discussing those types of packages, but that DIRECTV’s proposals along these lines so far have lacked specifics.
“Our view is we’re happy to engage in that conversation and that dialogue when you have more specifics, but we’re not going to let you warehouse rights from the Walt Disney Company because of something you might develop or create or imagine down the line,” Connolly told The Wrap.
He also suggested that DIRECTV would have more success by focusing its efforts on “experience and investing in the marketing and the consumer engagement trends,” and creating a product that is “slick and dynamic” instead of trying to create new, smaller channel packages.
Connolly did not mention the fact that creating a smaller channel bundle is exactly what Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery tried to do with their Venu Sports joint venture. The three companies tried to bypass cable channel distributors like DIRECTV with this package and sell it directly to consumers, but Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit against Venu, arguing that it and companies like it had never been allowed to sell those types of plans for themselves because the companies forced them to sell less popular channels in the same packages as high-demand channels like ESPN and TNT.
DIRECTV has been a supporter of Fubo's lawsuit for months, and now it’s trying to negotiate a carriage deal that could revolutionize the way cable channels are distributed. The start of the college and pro football seasons will put pressure on both sides to get a deal done sooner rather than later, but at the moment it’s all about who will blink first.
DIRECTV
DIRECTV is one of The Streamable’s top choices for the best live TV streaming service overall in 2026, especially for users who want the most channels or want to watch the most live sports. With an unbeatable lineup of local, news, sports, and entertainment channels, three main signature packages, an unlimited DVR, and 20 simultaneous streams at home, DIRECTV remains a premier choice for any cord-cutter.