Keegan99 said:

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True. But In this instance, Disney has the upper hand. Content is king. Without content, YTTV is just an impressive network architecture.

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Oh I don't disagree, just found it funny that Disney is technically "the little guy" in this battle.

Yea, I have no doubt that Google would love to own the content, too.

The legacy media companies like Disney have to be concerned with the likes of Amazon, Google, and Facebook getting into the content game.

The middle man helps them make way more money than if they went straight to customer/on-demand. Based on a quick google search there are 77.6 million homes with a cable plan. Lets just focus on the ESPN package of channels alone. ESPN charges each cable company about $9 monthly per home. That's $698.4M of revenue just off of cable subscriptions. The highest rated college football game on ESPN was on in about 5 million homes. The highest rated CFB game this year was on in 16 million homes. Just to play with numbers, lets assume ESPN gets 10 million people on average monthly to subscribe to its direct package to get its channels with all the cable companies locking ESPN out. ESPN would need to charge each subscriber $70/month to make the same amount of revenue. If they could get 20 million to pay monthly that might work out to a more tolerable $35 or $40 / month. Sports is the largest draw on tv by far, but far more people arent watching ESPN than are and they are helping foot the bill to keep the sports money machine rolling.

A streaming service with a contract?!

You can take the satellite dish away from Directv, but at the end of the day they are still set in their contract locking ways.

You can get DirectTV Stream with no contract, which was att TV basically.

I haven't had a contract with Directv in years. And the price is pretty cheap (mostly). I have to call and haggle with them every year or two, which is not fun. But it still has some advantages over streaming.

JCRiley09 said:

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A streaming service with a contract?!

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Yes, it was probably my fault i was so fed up with Suddenlink and didn't do enough research before switching and AT&T Tv was new (in our area) it had everything i thought i needed and didn't think to much of the contract. I should have just gone with Hulu then but wasn't fully ready to "cut the cord". Will fix that mistake in a few months.

Decent article talking about it.
YouTube TV could lose ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels late Friday (msn.com)

I had no idea Disney owned Hulu as well. No wonder they are trying to mess with youtube TV.

It would be nice if YTTV had a choose your channels option on top of the current package it has. I think YTTV currently has 85 channel and my bill is about $70/mo ($0.82/channel). I'd be willing to pay $1/channel to get to choose the exact channels I want because my bill would be lower than it is now.

Or they could do specific bundles like they have now with add ons:

ESPN bundle could be $10
Fox Sports bundle could be $8
Sports bundle (ESPNs, FS1/2, CBS Sports, etc) $15
Local bundle could be $5
Kids bundle (Disney/Nick): $10
Hallmark Make Your Wife Happy During Christmas Bundle: $5

aTm2004 said:

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It would be nice if YTTV had a choose your channels option on top of the current package it has. I think YTTV currently has 85 channel and my bill is about $70/mo ($0.82/channel). I'd be willing to pay $1/channel to get to choose the exact channels I want because my bill would be lower than it is now.

Or they could do specific bundles like they have now with add ons:

ESPN bundle could be $10
Fox Sports bundle could be $8
Sports bundle (ESPNs, FS1/2, CBS Sports, etc) $15
Local bundle could be $5
Kids bundle (Disney/Nick): $10
Hallmark Make Your Wife Happy During Christmas Bundle: $5

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But ESPN isn't letting folks do bundles like this. They've pushed for the primary channels at minimum to the be in the lowest tier bundle for decades and they aren't stopping now. This has made them the giant they are today and for the most part the sports enthusiast have greatly benefited, as Keegan points out every grandma and household out there has been subsidizing this content.

I do hate that ESPN has no serious competition but this is just awful timing for YTTV. Bowl season is just around the corner, NBA is in full swing and CBB is ramping up. This may even have been intentional on ESPN's part when originally negotiating the deal.

Bundling and subsidized programming were always the largest obstacles to a la carte. And I say that as someone who signed up for DirecTV Now as a beta tester and dropped Dish the next day. And moved to YTTV as soon as it was available in my area. I love the service but it was never going to be that much different in price long term.

aTm2004 said:

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It would be nice if YTTV had a choose your channels option on top of the current package it has. I think YTTV currently has 85 channel and my bill is about $70/mo ($0.82/channel). I'd be willing to pay $1/channel to get to choose the exact channels I want because my bill would be lower than it is now.

Or they could do specific bundles like they have now with add ons:

ESPN bundle could be $10
Fox Sports bundle could be $8
Sports bundle (ESPNs, FS1/2, CBS Sports, etc) $15
Local bundle could be $5
Kids bundle (Disney/Nick): $10
Hallmark Make Your Wife Happy During Christmas Bundle: $5

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I've seen reports that Bally Sports regional networks is considering charging $23/month for streaming access to be able to bypass cable and other bundles that refuse to carry the networks right now. If a regional network needs to charge that much, there is no way a sports bundle that includes ESPN and FS1 would only be $15.

ESPN bundle would be much higher as a lot fewer people watch it than pay for it.

As for Hallmark you are close, if you pick up Frndlytv at the mid tier $9 (the lowest tier isnt HD), you get Hallmark and some similar channels with Outdoor/Sportsman channel as a bonus.

With an antenna and a DVR (tablo) you are dead on for Local bundle, as the integrated tv guide for setting recordings etc is $5/month.

Anybody have FuboTV? Thoughts?

I'm out on YoutubeTV if they lose ESPN.

Looks like they didn't reach a deal. Goodbye YTTV

Wow. Watching JMU-NDSU on ESPN2 on YouTubeTV and it kept saying "play back error" every couple minutes. Restart the AppleTV and all my ESPN channels are gone.

I need ESPN for bowl game season, but I don't see it as being worth paying for a 2nd streaming service just for ESPNs and ABC...

Hoping they figure it out in the next day or two.

Members, we worked hard to avoid this but were unable to reach a fair deal with Disney. We regret to share that as of December 17, all Disney-owned channels are unavailable on YouTube TV. While Disney content remains off our platform, we’ll decrease our price by $15/month.

— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) December 18, 2021

We know how frustrating it is to lose channels like ESPN and your local ABC station, and will continue conversations with Disney in hopes of restoring their content for you. For the full list of removed Disney-owned channels and live updates, check out https://t.co/R7MzaOMBNF

— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) December 18, 2021

YouTube TV Loses ABC, ESPN and Other Disney-Owned Channels After Failed Contract Negotiations https://t.co/wAkr1kmYHJ

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 18, 2021

IrishAg said:

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KidDoc said:

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This is turning into a huge problem with mega-corps like Disney. They have SO much power they can hold providers over a barrel and force them to pay whatever they want.

Maybe some anti-trust issues in the future but I'm a doctor not a lawyer dammit.

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I have to laugh at this, not because I disagree about Disney, but because the statement is made when they're battling against Google, a company that is over 8x larger in Market Capitalization and doubles their yearly revenue.

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True, but at this juncture what do you think Disney wants now vs the contract before? They want to raise their price. Google wants to keep growing YTTV, and they know that if Disney raises their price by $3-$5 that either the YTTV profitability goes down or they pass the cost on to consumers.

There is a reason YTTV (Google) isn't just saying yes yes yes yes to every content provider that wants a price increase. YTTV will creep up from $45 to $50 to $60 $65 to $90 just like ComCast and Spectrum.

Nagler said:

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Anybody have FuboTV? Thoughts?

I'm out on YoutubeTV if they lose ESPN.

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Just switched to FuboTV this morning. So far I'm liking it. If it had Bally Sports it would be just about perfect.

Was kinda upset yttv didn't have espn then realized I can just bum someone else's espn+ account. What really hurts is having no internet today

If it's espn, yes it will.

sburg2007 said:

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If it's espn, yes it will.

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Not without a subscription to a provider with ESPN. ESPN+ by itself doesn't get you a whole lot.

Try clicking on the bowl game future events on ESPN+. The message that this game is not available comes up.

evan_aggie said:

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IrishAg said:

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KidDoc said:

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This is turning into a huge problem with mega-corps like Disney. They have SO much power they can hold providers over a barrel and force them to pay whatever they want.

Maybe some anti-trust issues in the future but I'm a doctor not a lawyer dammit.

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I have to laugh at this, not because I disagree about Disney, but because the statement is made when they're battling against Google, a company that is over 8x larger in Market Capitalization and doubles their yearly revenue.

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True, but at this juncture what do you think Disney wants now vs the contract before? They want to raise their price. Google wants to keep growing YTTV, and they know that if Disney raises their price by $3-$5 that either the YTTV profitability goes down or they pass the cost on to consumers.

There is a reason YTTV (Google) isn't just saying yes yes yes yes to every content provider that wants a price increase. YTTV will creep up from $45 to $50 to $60 $65 to $90 just like ComCast and Spectrum.

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Oh I think there is a reason Google isn't just saying yes, it's because they realize it will cut into the insane profits they get from YTTV since they can't keep raising prices. Which is why everyone is probably attempting to renegotiate with them all of a sudden. Think about the fact that YTTV now costs about the same as regular cable with the same channel set these days, but Google gets to run this without the burden of capital resources expenses to manage the physical cabling of the distribution.

So they're just exerting pressure to keep those profits over the top, and providers want their share to keep their stupid levels of profits over the top. In this battle I would probably side with Disney a little more as they are actually providing the content.

But, going back to my comments, overall it seems like wherever I look across the Internet this is coming across as Disney is attempting to bully Google to get more money, which is hilarious to me considering that Disney net worth is around 250 billion (which is stupid) and Google's is over 2 Trillion (which is outright ludicrous). Both are way too large, but Google is just insanely large and is used to doing whatever the hell the want all the time without caring about who it affects, which is probably why the channels actually got dropped (and is the reason why I hesitate to use YTTV).

I agree. Picking sides is dumb. It's two companies trying to maximize their bottom lines. Neither cares about the disruption it causes in the short term above and beyond customers moving on.

Everyone has to make business decisions to profit, and grow.

Are you also pissed off at Tesla? Apple? Microsoft? Amazon?

Most of Google's profits come from advertising revenue. YouTube TV is probably one of their least profitable business units.

I remember my TimeWarner bill being $150/mo including internet. If YTTV goes much over $65-$70 we're back to content provides charging more for their core channels that we all only wanted to begin with.

The idea of TV over the the internet was innovative and unique and had an edge over the lame business model from ancient providers. Now we are regressing as content providers ratchet up the price.

I dropped YTTV for Hulu TV+ with Disney package- basically same price and works perfect. Bye bye YTTV.