As we enter the second week of YouTube TV and Disney’s ongoing fee war, ESPN, ABC, and other Disney-owned channels remain blacked out, and subscribers are not happy. The House of Mouse channels were taken away from YouTube TV just before Halloween on October 30 as Disney and Google struggled to come to an agreement.
In its most simple terms, Google asserts that Disney wants too much money for its channels, and Disney has claimed that Google isn’t paying fair rates. It’s gotten so bad that even ESPN employees have started calling for an end to the blackout.
Survey says…
According to a new survey from Drive Research (via Variety), YouTube TV subscribers aren’t happy. In response to the standoff, 24% of respondents said they had already cancelled their subscription or were planning to do so. That’s according to around 1,100 consumers who responded to the survey.
Around 30% said they would subscribe or plan on subscribing to ESPN Unlimited or Hulu + Live TV to keep watching, one of a trio of ways that sports fans can get ESPN. The cheapest option may be a Sling TV Day Pass, but that won’t get you everything you may want. Another 22% said they would just use a friend’s login, while 15% admitted they might use an illegal stream.
If the outage continues for longer, 82% of those surveyed said that they are “likely” to cancel YouTube TV altogether, though a timeframe was not provided. Also, saying you’ll cancel and actually doing it are two different things.
Interestingly, like me, a majority of survey respondents said they signed up for YouTube TV specifically to watch sports. The rest said they did so for the channel lineup or specifically ABC. Additionally, the price, though it has dramatically crept up in the last year, played a role with many saying that it was cheaper than cable or other options.
This isn’t NBC vs YouTube TV
In September, NBC and YouTube TV had a similar standoff that ended at the bell with the two companies coming to an agreement. There was some brief flailing at the idea that NBCUniversal channels would disappear, but it seems that negotiation was more amicable. The short-term deal agreed to looks largely the same as the one that expired going into the negotiations.
This Disney spat appears more dug in, and it’s hurting everyone from Disney and Google to paying customers.
At its core, YouTube TV could start bleeding customers as access to favored sports channels stays blacked out. Disney isn’t out of the weeds either. NBC Sports reported that “Monday Night Football” saw a viewership decline of 21% compared to the same game last year. Though admittedly, other factors could be at play there, including the quality of the opponents.
Sports streaming is already a fractured, incoherent mess, and that’s just if you’re trying to watch the big four leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) in the United States. The NWSL and MLS are nearly unwatchable. Going over sees, and international sports like the English Premier League and other top-tier European soccer leagues get even messier.
This fee war will come to an end; the question becomes who has to blink first, subscribers, Google or Disney?
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