OT: AT&T/DirecTV Disney/ESPN Carriage Dispute Upcoming

[SavageSteve]

Noticed during Monday Night Football last night that ESPN was warning AT&T/DirecTV Subscribers of the potential for all of those channels to be pulled from their line-ups around September 28, 2019. This will potentially be a landscape changing deal for sports on pay tv...

Click to read more...

 

[SavageSteve]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">ESPN is using the first MNF game of the season to warn viewers that DirecTV may drop ESPN&#39;s channels soon. <a href="Dan Vilardo on Twitter">Dan Vilardo on Twitter</a></p>&mdash; John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) <a href="">September 10, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[LadyStanley]

ATTSN Rocky Mountain is the carrier for VGK games.

 

[tarheelhockey]

They’ll drop the price of the service accordingly.

Right?

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Of course right after I switched to U-Verse

Comcast was so god damn awful I made jump last month. Final straw was when I set up appointment to address my on demand (Had issues over last year+ with it) as well as other issues only for driver not to come and then told by Comcast yes he came but you weren't home. I was sitting in my living room all day waiting for him (And I work nights) and essentially was called a liar by Comcast person on phone. Also all the boxes I had from them were different. With U-Verse all the boxes are brand new and same (I assume Comcast recycles used boxes)

Overall its cheaper and I get most of the channels I had under Comcast via U-Verse (NFL Network and NHL Network only losses) and it hasn't had any issues tech wise

Now this will suck though I am confused why NBC Sports Chicago could go black. Its not owned by Disney

 

[217 Forever]

Of course right after I switched to U-Verse

Comcast was so god damn awful I made jump last month. Final straw was when I set up appointment to address my on demand (Had issues over last year+ with it) as well as other issues only for driver not to come and then told by Comcast yes he came but you weren't home. I was sitting in my living room all day waiting for him (And I work nights) and essentially was called a liar by Comcast person on phone. Also all the boxes I had from them were different. With U-Verse all the boxes are brand new and same (I assume Comcast recycles used boxes)

Overall its cheaper and I get most of the channels I had under Comcast via U-Verse (NFL Network and NHL Network only losses) and it hasn't had any issues tech wise

Now this will suck though I am confused why NBC Sports Chicago could go black. Its not owned by Disney

I'd be stunned if AT&T/Directv would do without ESPN/Disney Networks for any significant length of time if at all. The pressure to settle would be immense. Those outlets are too significant viewership-wise. Has any cable/satellite company ever dropped ESPN before? Think about it. Many people have Directv specifically because of the Sunday ticket. I'm thinking people in that position might not be too happy about missing Monday Night Football, and that's just the first of many considerations.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Without ESPN, lets be frank. No bars or restaurant is going to use DirectTV. Which is where they will really be hurting.

 

[SavageSteve]

I'd be stunned if AT&T/Directv would do without ESPN/Disney Networks for any significant length of time if at all. The pressure to settle would be immense. Those outlets are too significant viewership-wise. Has any cable/satellite company ever dropped ESPN before? Think about it. Many people have Directv specifically because of the Sunday ticket. I'm thinking people in that position might not be too happy about missing Monday Night Football, and that's just the first of many considerations.

Well what I am wondering about specifically is if they'll break up negotiations to include these with the traditional services (DirecTV and Uverse) and play hardball with the streaming services cord-cutters are using (AT&T TV Now, AT&T Watch TV) in an effort to get all of the cheapo's on grandfathered plans like I currently have, as they roll out their new service, AT&T TV (AT&T TV: Live TV, DVR, On Demand, Apps & Voice Control), that essentially is a DirecTV streaming box that requires no tech to install a satellite. I've seen a lot of press that DirecTV Now and YouTube TV are not money-makers in their current form and it took live sports access for the Fox Sports affiliates to get me to cut the cord in the first place.

 

[217 Forever]

Well what I am wondering about specifically is if they'll break up negotiations to include these with the traditional services (DirecTV and Uverse) and play hardball with the streaming services cord-cutters are using (AT&T TV Now, AT&T Watch TV) in an effort to get all of the cheapo's on grandfathered plans like I currently have, as they roll out their new service, AT&T TV (AT&T TV: Live TV, DVR, On Demand, Apps & Voice Control), that essentially is a DirecTV streaming box that requires no tech to install a satellite. I've seen a lot of press that DirecTV Now and YouTube TV are not money-makers in their current form and it took live sports access for the Fox Sports affiliates to get me to cut the cord in the first place.

AT&T must have something up their sleeve, otherwise this whole scenario just screams suicide to me. Over the summer when the CBS dispute was going on, access suddenly came back right before the pre-season NFL games started. We're talking about regular season NFL (and college) games now. And that's without considering the Disney channels impact.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

AT&T did abandon U-verse viewers by dropping NFL Network over costs (Kept it for Direct TV viewers though) and the fight over future of Sunday Ticket with NFL

So if they were prepared to deal with fury of football fans and loss of subscriptions over NFL Network who is to guess how they will deal with this

 

[SavageSteve]

AT&T did abandon U-verse viewers by dropping NFL Network over costs (Kept it for Direct TV viewers though) and the fight over future of Sunday Ticket with NFL

So if they were prepared to deal with fury of football fans and loss of subscriptions over NFL Network who is to guess how they will deal with this

DirecTV Now (recently re-branded AT&T TV Now) dropped NFL Network right before the Draft here in Nashville. I honestly think they want to blow up those models to get back to what they had before...

 

[217 Forever]

DirecTV Now (recently re-branded AT&T TV Now) dropped NFL Network right before the Draft here in Nashville. I honestly think they want to blow up those models to get back to what they had before...

So blow up your own streaming service so people can go to someone else's? Makes perfect sense to me...

 

[tarheelhockey]

I'm pretty ignorant of this stuff, but I don't understand why the NFL wouldn't just release an app and sell direct subscriptions rather than going through a carrier. They could cut out the middleman and collect payment directly from their audience without having to negotiate anything.

 

[217 Forever]

I'm pretty ignorant of this stuff, but I don't understand why the NFL wouldn't just release an app and sell direct subscriptions rather than going through a carrier. They could cut out the middleman and collect payment directly from their audience without having to negotiate anything.

You mean other than the fact that for now they have an exclusive deal with At&T/Directv?

I'm sure it's being looked at along with myriad other possibilities for when the current deal is over.

 

[tarheelhockey]

You mean other than the fact that for now they have an exclusive deal with At&T/Directv?

I'm sure it's being looked at along with myriad other possibilities for when the current deal is over.

Ha, yes I meant it more along the lines of, why would they want this kind of arrangement over simply controlling their own means of distribution? It seems like this contentiousness and harm to the customer base would just drive home the point that it's massively to their advantage not to work through third-party providers in the future.

I'd have to think that the day the clock hits zero on that contract, they walk away from the table and become a distributor of their own content, a la Disney.

 

[David Dennison]

Isn't this pretty much an annual tradition at this point? Subscribers miss a game or two, call and cancel, cable providers cave and pay the extra nickel or dime per subscriber, wash, rinse, go f*** yourself and see you next year.

 

[SavageSteve]

So blow up your own streaming service so people can go to someone else's? Makes perfect sense to me...

Well they are launching a new streaming service called AT&T TV (linked in initial post) where they give you a plug and play Android box that essentially works like traditional DirecTV w/out the Dish at a higher pricepoint. The current services they offer run in the red and have a lot of early-adopters that have grandfathered pricing and AT&T wants to get more subscribers that get premium services and complain less when prices go up. I've seen multiple media sources report that YouTube TV is losing $5 per month per customer. At a million subscribers, that is $60M a year and there is reportedly no path to being profitable. If AT&T drives another million subscribers to YouTube TV, then that's $120M a year lost... so yes it makes perfect sense.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

They came to agreement (Though still haven't announced it) and ACC Network is now available to AT&T TV and U-Verse customers leaving Comcast as only major provider without it



Those messages only scrolled for a day or two so it was clearly attempt by Disney to put pressure on AT&T

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

AT&T must have something up their sleeve, otherwise this whole scenario just screams suicide to me. Over the summer when the CBS dispute was going on, access suddenly came back right before the pre-season NFL games started. We're talking about regular season NFL (and college) games now. And that's without considering the Disney channels impact.

IIRC, there’s been an outside investor banging away recently for AT&T to divest DirecTV and they agreed to do so.

If you could migrate people over to AT&T Now(via 4K programming on IPTV), then cleave off the satellite biz to Dish or whomever wants to put it into runoff mode, I get it.

 

[awfulwaffle]

Ha, yes I meant it more along the lines of, why would they want this kind of arrangement over simply controlling their own means of distribution? It seems like this contentiousness and harm to the customer base would just drive home the point that it's massively to their advantage not to work through third-party providers in the future.

I'd have to think that the day the clock hits zero on that contract, they walk away from the table and become a distributor of their own content, a la Disney.

Well wouldnt they need to build infrastructure to support all these people that would watch through them instead of a carrier? Now they just provide the content and it is up to the service to provide the infrastructure for the demand correct?

 

[Grudy0]

IIRC, there’s been an outside investor banging away recently for AT&T to divest DirecTV and they agreed to do so.

If you could migrate people over to AT&T Now(via 4K programming on IPTV), then cleave off the satellite biz to Dish or whomever wants to put it into runoff mode, I get it.

AT&T hasn't agreed to sell their DirecTV division - earlier in the week they've told the activist investor and everyone else that would listen that DirecTV is an important part of their go-forward distribution strategy, that they aren't exploring a sale.

 

[powerstuck]

Sounds like something similar between Bell and Quebecor(TVASports).

Quebecor was menacing to stop TVA Sports broadcasting to Bell subscribers over a dispute between the two companies (TVASport has French NHL Rights and most importantly in Quebec most of Habs games).