UPDATED with YouTube TV statement. YouTube TV has rejected Disney‘s request to restore ABC for Election Day on Tuesday as a matter of “public interest” while the companies hammer out a carriage renewal.
“We agree that the right priority here is to give customers what they want,” YouTube TV acknowledged in a blog post. “As you know from the many content disputes you’ve been part of, customers don’t want companies fighting and content blackouts. But unfortunately, your proposal would permit us to return Disney’s ABC stations only for a day and will cause customer confusion among those who may briefly see ABC on YouTube TV only to lose it again shortly after.”
ABC, ESPN and other Disney networks went dark Thursday night for YouTube TV’s 10 million subscribers after the distribution talks failed to yield a deal. Thus far, sports has been the primary casualty of the impasse, with a full slate of college football MIA last Saturday and the Monday Night Football game between the perennially high-rated Dallas Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals next to be hit by the battle.
The blog post noted that ABC News has 19.1 million subscribers on YouTube, where news programming has been livestreamed during the carriage dispute. ABC News Live, a 24/7 channel, also can be accessed on Hulu, outside of the pay-TV bundle.
“There are plenty of other options for customers – election news information is very widely available across other broadcast stations and news networks on YouTube TV, as well as on the main YouTube service, for free. In fact, on the last two U.S. election days, the vast majority of tuned in YouTube TV subscribers chose not to watch ABC,” YouTube TV’s blog post maintained.
A Disney statement provided to Deadline earlier Monday explained the context for the company’s request. “Despite the impasse that led to the current blackout, we have asked YouTube TV to restore ABC for Election Day so subscribers have access to the information they rely on,” the statement from a Disney spokesperson said. “We believe in putting the public interest first and hope YouTube TV will take this small step for their customers while we continue to work toward a fair agreement.”
YouTube TV, which launched in 2017, has grown into a dominant pay-TV provider with 10 million subscribers. Given its growing scale, the operator has had a string of high-profile carriage battles with major programmers. TelevisaUnivision’s networks have been dark since late-September, but NBCUniversal, Fox Corp. and Paramount all reached agreements without blackouts.
For its part, Disney has been willing to risk blackouts at times in order to further its strategic objectives as it balances declining linear tune-in with its direct-to-consumer streaming operations. In 2023 and 2024, it had high-profile blackouts with Charter Communications’ Spectrum systems and DirecTV, respectively. The DirecTV outage coincided with a debate between then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris. DirecTV rejected Disney’s request to restore ABC temporarily in that situation.
Unlike sports, broadcast network news programming is fairly widely available outside of the traditional linear bundle. Disney several years ago started putting ABC World News Tonight and other news programming on Hulu.
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