Disney Fires Back Saying DIRECTV Has Chosen to ‘Misrepresent’ Carriage Dispute
On a new website of its own, Disney says it has offered DIRECTV the chance to craft sports and entertainment-focused channel packages.
The war of words between Disney and DIRECTV is continuing to heat up. The two sides are locked in a carriage dispute that has seen Disney-owned channels like ABC, ESPN, and others pulled from DIRECTV packages just days before the start of the 2024 NFL season. DIRECTV has done its best to lay the blame for the dispute at Disney’s feet, making very public arguments that the company is digging its heels in on giving DIRECTV customers more flexibility. Disney issued a new statement on the carriage dispute on Wednesday, attempting to counter many of DIRECTV’s claims that it deserves all the blame for the schism between the two.
Key Details:
- DIRECTV held a virtual press conference on Tuesday, calling Disney “inflexible” and saying the carriage talks were timed specifically to cause DIRECTV customers the most possible pain.
- Disney responded by saying it has offered DIRECTV the ability to create smaller packages with its channels, as the company has been wanting.
- More than 90% of DIRECTV households watched Disney linear channels every month of 2023, according to Nielsen.
The new statement from Disney is a response to the virtual press conference held by DIRECTV on Tuesday. During the conference, DIRECTV called Disney its most “inflexible” channel-owning partner, and company CFO Ray Carpenter said DIRECTV is willing to fight this fight for as long as necessary to help its customers get more programming options.
Disney co-chairmen Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, along with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro issued the following statement on Wednesday:
“DirecTV continues to misrepresent the facts around our ongoing negotiations. Our priority is to reach a marketplace deal that serves the needs of DirecTV and their customers while also recognizing the value of our top-quality content and the significant investment required to create and acquire it. We believe there is a path to a fair and flexible agreement that strikes this critical balance and works for all sides, especially the consumer.”
Specifically, a Disney spokesperson says that the company has offered DIRECTV the opportunity to craft a sports-focused channel package featuring the ESPN networks and ABC, as well as an entertainment-themed package featuring Disney’s entertainment networks. It also says that it has proposed selling DIRECTV linear plans with access to Disney-owned streaming services like Hulu and Disney+ included.
DIRECTV Chief Content Officer Rob Thun told me that smaller, genre-specific packages were high on DIRECTV’s wish list before the carriage dispute began, and that the ability packages based around sports, news, movies, and kids’ content were priorities for the company. It sounds as if Disney is at least willing to entertain that notion, according to Wednesday’s statement.
DIRECTV launched a website earlier this week to make its case to the public that the fault for the carriage dispute lies with Disney. The House of Mouse now has a similar website in Keepmynetworks.com, where it argues it is asking for fair carriage rates and shows customers where they can access Disney-owned networks if they cannot get them through DIRECTV thanks to the outage.
While many observers expect a resolution to the dispute before the end of the upcoming weekend, customers are once again caught in the middle. Both sides are predictably trying to make the other out as the villain in the standoff, but football fans can only wait and hope that they come to a deal before Saturday’s college football and “Monday Night Football” air on ESPN and ABC.
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