YouTube TV’s contract dispute with Disney has now cost its subscribers two weekends of college football and will also likely cause them to miss yet another Monday Night Football game tonight.
All of the Disney-owned streaming channels, including ABC, ESPN, the ACC Network and the SEC Networks, were removed from YouTube TV on Oct. 31 and have not returned since.
The disagreement causing the ABC and ESPN outage stems from the “carriage fee” that YouTube TV pays Disney to broadcast its channels. Disney has faced similar negotiating standoffs with other broadcasters in recent years, including an earlier 2021 outage on YouTube TV that was resolved in two days.
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Disney says YouTube TV is not paying enough to stream its channels. YouTube TV, owned by Google, has the most subscribers among all internet TV providers, with over 9 million. Hulu, owned by Disney, is second with 4.3 million subscribers through its Hulu + Live TV offering.
YouTube TV had promised subscribers a $20 credit for the streaming service if the Disney channels outage continued for an extended period, and on Sunday, the streaming service announced the details of that credit. Read on to learn how you can claim the $20 credit, when the outage might be resolved, and how you can watch ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels in the meantime.
How can YouTube TV subscribers claim their $20 credit?
YouTube TV subscribers should receive an email from the service when their credits are available. After you’ve received your email, follow these steps to claim your $20 credit.
- Log in to YouTube.com on a web browser, click or tap on your profile picture, then select Settings. You can also directly browse to the URL at https://tv.youtube.com/settings/service_updates.
- At the bottom of the menu on the left, select Updates.
- On the following screen that explains the Disney channels outage, click or tap the blue button marked Claim Credit.
Emails from YouTube TV started going out Sunday night, and several Reddit posters have already reported receiving the $20 credit. All of the credits for YouTube TV subscribers should be issued by Nov. 12, according to Variety.
Which Disney channels were removed from YouTube TV?
Sports fans aren’t the only viewers left sidelined by the loss of Disney channels from YouTube TV. Here are all the channels that have been removed from the streaming service:
- ABC
- ABC News Live
- ACC Network
- Baby TV Español (Spanish Plan)
- Disney Channel
- Disney Junior
- Disney XD
- ESPN
- ESPN Deportes (Spanish Plan)
- ESPNews
- ESPNU
- ESPN2
- Freeform
- FX
- FXM
- FXX
- Localish
- Nat Geo
- Nat Geo Mundo (Spanish Plan)
- Nat Geo Wild
- SEC Network
When could Disney channels return to YouTube TV?
As with previous Disney disputes, negotiations are under wraps. Disney’s contract conflicts from previous years — Sling TV in 2022, Spectrum/Charter in 2023 and DirecTV in 2024 — were mostly resolved in a week or two, but Google has considerably more bargaining power than those other platforms.
According to Variety, if a deal is reached between Disney and YouTube, the missing channels will return “in a matter of hours.”
On Oct. 30, YouTube TV posted on X, “Members, when we renew our contracts with network partners, we advocate for fair pricing to offer you the best TV experience.”
“Google’s YouTube TV has chosen to deny its subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for our channels, including ESPN and ABC,” Disney said in a statement to CNBC.
In a memo to employees on Oct. 31 that was also reported by CNBC, Disney accused YouTube TV of deleting “previously recorded shows and events from their subscribers’ libraries.”
“YouTube TV and its owner, Google, are not interested in achieving a fair deal with us,” Disney Entertainment co-chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in the memo. “Instead, they want to use their power and extraordinary resources to eliminate competition and devalue the very content that helped them build their service.”
Disney is also asking its viewers to ask YouTube TV to bring back its broadcasting via the keepmynetworks.com site.
How can YouTube TV subscribers watch football games during the Disney outage?
YouTube TV subscribers with an aerial TV antenna can still watch Monday Night Football and college football games on ABC if they live close enough to receive an over-the-air broadcast signal from a local ABC affiliate.
Other than that, the only real option for viewers who want to watch all of the college football and basketball games this weekend and Monday Night Football at home is to subscribe to another service that provides ABC and ESPN, including ESPN+, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, Fubo or DirecTV Stream.
Sling TV offers a $5 Day Pass that could be a good option for viewers who want to watch one specific game, as well as a $10 Weekend Pass that would give you college football and basketball games for both days.
For those looking to find football games at local establishments, this handy app can help you find places that are showing the games.
Correction, Nov. 5: An earlier version of this story failed to note that Sling TV day and weekend passes can be used to watch local ABC affiliates only in certain markets.
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