Now that we’ve got the deals with Roku and NBC over with, it’s time to move onto Disney. YouTube TV is currently working with Disney to renew their deal for their slate of channels. But if that deal is not reached by this Friday, December 17, Disney’s channels on YouTube TV will go dark.
YouTube TV sent out an email to all subscribers this evening highlighting the details here. Which, good on YouTube TV for being as transparent as they can. Of course, their lawyers don’t want them disclosing any part of these deals, so there’s only so much they can say.
The channels that you would lose if a deal is not reached, include your local ABC channel, ABC News Live, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Freeform, FX, FXX, FXM, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 (by authentication to the ESPN app), ESPNU, ESPNEWS, and the SEC Network.
If a deal isn’t reached, YouTube TV will drop to $49.99
If you don’t use those channels, there’s good news for you. YouTube TV has said that they will decrease their price by $15 if a deal is not reached with Disney. That sounds like a pretty massive discount, but remember that sports is a big portion of the price for streaming live TV services. And since regional sports networks are gone, these are basically the only sports left.
That does also mean that if a deal is not reached, this would be a major blow for YouTube TV. Since it was once the best streaming Live TV service for sports, and without a Disney deal, it would have virtually zero sports networks left on its platform. We can thank greedy Sinclair for doing that to us.
It’s likely that a deal will be made. Disney will likely wait until Thursday or early Friday morning to sign a new deal with YouTube TV. It’s par the course for these deals. It sucks for the customer, but this is how it’s been done for decades.
2021-12-14 15:10:29