Posted on 09/01/2023 6:56:51 PM PDT by Libloather
ESPN and other Disney-owned channels have gone dark on Charter's Spectrum cable service, as the two companies intensify their dispute over fees.
Disney pulled ESPN, ABC and its other cable channels off Spectrum on Thursday night, the eve of college football's first big games and the middle of US Open tennis coverage.
Spectrum serves huge markets including New York and Los Angeles and has some 32 million customers, many of whom are now fuming at the loss of sports coverage.
At the moment Disney pulled the plug, ESPN was carrying a college football game between Florida and No. 14 Utah while ESPN2 was showing the US Open tennis tournament.
'We're very disappointed for our fans and viewers around the country that Spectrum and Charter could not resolve their dispute with Disney, resulting in a loss of ESPN coverage of Thursday night's matches,' USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said in a statement.
College football season begins in earnest on Saturday, with ESPN scheduled to air four major games: No. 20 Oklahoma vs Arkansas State, Auburn vs UMass, No. 23 Texas A&M vs New Mexico, and UCLA vs Coastal Carolina.
ABC is scheduled to carry No. 12 Tennessee vs Virginia, No. 10 Washington vs Boise State, and No. 21 North Carolina vs South Carolina.
ESPN's 'College GameDay' has long reigned as the preeminent Saturday morning pregame show, but faces fresh competition from Fox and its upstart 'Big Noon Kickoff' and risks loosing fans if the dispute drags out.
Other cities where Charter Spectrum is the major cable carrier include Dallas/Fort Worth; Orlando, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis; Cleveland; Cincinnati; Milwaukee; and Las Vegas.
The dispute is mainly over sports network ESPN, which does not have a streaming service and is a big cable attraction, despite losing subscribers each year to...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Pro sports are a bunch of commies. Better not to watch them.
College counts as pro sports.
Florida fans should have been grateful for that.
The darker, the better.
Greed.
I used to be a huge college football fan. When I broke the habit of watching the NFL, I naturally lost interest in watching college football too. It’s just too much of a time commitment, and I don’t really understand how people live eat and breathe this stuff. The country is going to hell, and I really don’t care about the bread and circuses anymore, especially with so many sports giving me the middle finger with all of the woke messaging.
It feels like overall sports fandom is becoming less of thing now and with people cutting cable, I bet there’s going to be more of these pricing disputes between networks and cable providers as they all duke it out for a bigger share of a shrinking pie.
A pox on both their houses.
Well said. I used to love college football. I have no time for this crap now. The players deserve their time in the sun, but no one has to watch. Better to save the country than watch adults playing a childhood game.
Yes, listen on the radio on your completely free radio stations.
Local sports teams games used to be primarily on the air on your local broadcast TV stations...and would return if consumers voted with their feet and stopped paying fees to watch them...or not watch them...you pay it whether you watch or not. That’s what Disney is trying to do per some reports - they want Spectrum to give subscribers all of their stations so they can charge fees for each one whether people watch or not. If they made stuff worth watching, then they would make money off of commercial fees due to good ratings. This is how the quality of programming has been allowed to crash over the years - they get paid money even if you don’t watch if you subscribe. This came to be from carriage fees for cable services and made even worse when streaming came along.
buncha bastard sharks eating each other alive.
Public be damned.
Disney is evil
I can't really relate to the athletes anymore. Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, I feel like I could get along with them and have a beer in a bar.
I can't really relate to most of the athletes nowadays, especially in the NBA.
Have watched two reports on this tonight. Disney is living in the past and thinks they can still charge whatever they want , especially for ESPN. Charter Spectrum says that according to their data only 25% of their customers watch any Disney channels including ESPN. They offered a more realistic deal and Disney turned them down.
All this will ultimately impact Disney revenues from their other cable deals. They have made so mistakes it is finally hurting them. Add in to that they need money and lots of it. They are contractually obligated to buy the 1/3 of Hulu they do not own and that will add up to billions they need right now to close the deal by December 31, 2023. So they will have to sell off some assets like Fox to make it work or a piece of ESPN itself.
Oh and their stock closed at a big low also today.
I’m so pissed. For years I worked on the weekends and missed games. Now that I no longer work, Disney does this crap. No SEC games for me!
sounds like a good time to consider switching from spectrum to directv ...
Out of the frypan into the fire! ;-)
Sports = me and mine
Not a watcher. Am a Player
Bye bye
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.