A little bit over two weeks ago, YouTube TV customers began receiving a notification that each one Disney/ABC/ESPN channels can be unavailable attributable to the expiration of the 2 parties’ media deal with out a recent agreement. The streaming service’s 10MM subscribers will begin to see access to those channels restored because the tech giants have agreed to a brand new multi-year deal, per Andrew Marchand of The Athletic.
The 15-day hiatus resulted in hundreds of thousands of consumers losing access to Monday Night Football games broadcast on ESPN and ABC, in addition to several ESPN-affiliated channels that make up a big block of faculty football viewing on Saturdays. Over two weekends, the shortage of a deal also kept popular Saturday morning College Gameday programming off of televisions across the country, as well.
With Disney’s quarterly earnings call going down yesterday, progress was improving throughout the week. Negotiations became far more serious than initially suspected, and consequently, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Disney CEO Bob Iger each became more involved in negotiations.
The brand new deal will return access to the entire missing channels, and now YouTube TV subscribers may have access to ESPN’s recent direct-to-consumer app. Reports of the brand new deal did not report any change in price for the service, but YouTube TV customers were offered a $20-credit for the absence of the channels last weekend.
The 2-week game of media chicken finally involves an end in time for Week 12 of the school football season. Monday Night Football can even return to the streaming service because the Cowboys head to Las Vegas to shut out Week 11 of the NFL’s regular season.