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Disney and Charter are talking about carriage fees, and the outcome could affect how much you pay for cable in the streaming era
KEY POINTS
Moreover, Disney wants pay-TV providers to integrate ESPN+ into their user interfaces, just as Comcast has done for Amazon and Netflix content, according to a person familiar with the matter. Then, a pay-TV operator could sell ESPN and ESPN+ together for an additional fee, and a consumer could watch all ESPN+ content as a network, just like ESPN.
>>At this point, Disney isn’t asking to remove valuable assets from ESPN and shift them to ESPN+, two of the people said. That’s key. Charter isn’t going to want to lock in a rate increase for ESPN if the linear network could lose its exclusivity value in the coming years as Disney makes some events available to ESPN+.
But Disney will likely want the ability to place particular games on ESPN+ and add other sweeteners to entice more consumers to sign up for the digital service. And those games probably would have lived on ESPN or one of its companion networks. <<
KEY POINTS
- Disney and Charter are currently negotiating a new carriage renewal deal, which has a deadline in early August.
- Talks that used to revolve around how much programming fees should rise now also revolve around how the introduction of direct-to-consumer services impact the value of linear networks.
- Charter and Disney are talking about what type of flexibility Disney will have with taking certain events from ESPN and also placing them on ESPN+.
Moreover, Disney wants pay-TV providers to integrate ESPN+ into their user interfaces, just as Comcast has done for Amazon and Netflix content, according to a person familiar with the matter. Then, a pay-TV operator could sell ESPN and ESPN+ together for an additional fee, and a consumer could watch all ESPN+ content as a network, just like ESPN.
>>At this point, Disney isn’t asking to remove valuable assets from ESPN and shift them to ESPN+, two of the people said. That’s key. Charter isn’t going to want to lock in a rate increase for ESPN if the linear network could lose its exclusivity value in the coming years as Disney makes some events available to ESPN+.
But Disney will likely want the ability to place particular games on ESPN+ and add other sweeteners to entice more consumers to sign up for the digital service. And those games probably would have lived on ESPN or one of its companion networks. <<