Around 4 p.m. PST Sunday, a blackout of Walt Disney Co.-owned channels on DirecTV affected nearly 11 million homes.
This included ESPN and ABC, stations airing highly-anticipated sporting events, including a major college football matchup and primetime at the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The blackout came after weeks of back-and-forth negotiations regarding the fees Disney requires to host its content on DirecTV’s platforms ended in a stalemate, per the Los Angeles Times.
On Sunday evening, the companies issued dueling statements blaming the other.
DirecTV’s Chief Content Officer, Rob Thun, said that Disney was chasing profits.
“They want to continue to chase maximum profits and dominant control at the expense of consumers — making it harder for them to select the shows and sports they want at a reasonable price,” Thun said in a statement.
Disney, meanwhile, issued a statement from Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, co-chairmen of Disney Entertainment, and Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN urging DirecTV to “do what’s in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming.”
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The statement said DirecTV is “undervaluing” its content.
“DirecTV chose to deny millions of subscribers access to our content just as we head into the final week of the US Open and gear up for college football and the opening of the NFL season,” the statement read. “While we’re open to offering DirecTV flexibility and terms which we’ve extended to other distributors, we will not enter into an agreement that undervalues our portfolio of television channels and programs.”
How to Get DirecTV’s $20 credit
Customers must visit https://www.directv.com/tvpromise/ and fill out the needed fields (location, service, etc.). The credit could appear in two separate billing cycles, per the website.
The duration of the blackout is uncertain; however, a previous dispute with Charter Communications resulted in a 12-day channel suspension.
