On Aug. 31, Disney-owned channels, including ABC and ESPN, were pulled from Spectrum cable as Disney and Charter Spectrum reached an impasse in negotiations over carriage fees.
In a statement on its website, Charter Spectrum said, “We offered Disney a fair deal, and yet they continue to demand an excessive increase.”
Disney said in a post that it “deeply values its relationship with its viewers and is hopeful Charter is ready to have more conversations that will restore access to its content to Spectrum customers as quickly as possible.”
In the same post, Disney appeared to suggest that “frustrated customers” should switch to Hulu + Live TV.
“There’s no contract, no cable box, and no wait time to subscribe,” it said.
While it appears Spectrum nor Disney are winning this dispute, Paul Verna, a media analyst for Insider Intelligence, said the real losers are the viewers.
“I think in this case, really everybody is losing because it doesn't help either of these companies to be in this standoff,” he told LA’s Afternoon News. “And yet there are reasons why they both come to this place and they have a lot to do with the complex dynamics of pay TV, and the way it's evolving from traditional cable systems like charter to digitally delivered ones. But it is a big mess.”
If you’re thinking of cutting the cord on cable and hopping on the streaming bandwagon, Verna said you’re going to need a strong internet signal.
“These are carried by all of the companies that also provide pay TV,” he said. “So really, what they're talking about is a scenario where the other business, the internet business is profitable, but pay TV is not.”
On Wednesday, a proposed class-action lawsuit was filed against Charter-Spectrum by a group of subscribers in Florida for declining Disney’s offer.
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