Disney, DirecTV end ESPN, ABC blackout as football season ramps up

Disney and DirecTV struck a deal over the weekend to bring the service back to the Mouse House’s “entire portfolio of networks,” including ESPN and ABC, as the college and pro football seasons get into full swing.

The deal comes after a two-week shutdown of Disney-owned networks for DirecTV that spanned the U.S. Open, a slew of college football games, the season premiere of “Monday Night Football” and the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, which was hosted by ABC.

DirecTV’s 11 million subscribers have been without access to Disney-owned channels since Sept. 1, when talks to renew the license broke down, setting off a two-week standoff between the companies.

At issue was the ability for DirecTV customers to have more flexibility in the channels that are part of its package with Disney. The company argued that broadcasting companies allow such flexibility.

Most contracts have required pay TV distributors to charge subscribers for all of a company’s channels, whether they want to or not. For example, DirecTV subscribers can watch Disney-owned ESPN and ESPN 2, but not Disney Junior and the FX channel.

In the new deal, customers with the satellite provider can now choose more genre-specific packages such as sports or family programming to better compete with broadcast offerings. DirecTV customers can also add Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, Disney’s streaming services, to packages.

“Through this first-of-its-kind collaboration, DirecTV and Disney are giving customers the ability to customize their video experience through more flexible options,” the companies said in a joint statement Saturday.

During the company’s earnings call, DirecTV Chief Marketing Officer Vince Torres said Thursday that the two-week outage had caused his company to lose customers. Without specifying a number, he said the defections were not “insignificant”.

The move comes as DirecTV has bled subscribers in recent years as customers decide to drop their cable packages in favor of streaming.

A transportation dispute between Disney and Spectrum’s parent Charter Communications led to a nearly two-week outage around this time last year and was resolved hours before ESPN’s “MNF” opener pitted the Jets against the Buffalo Bills.