Charter Spectrum Customers Lose Access To ESPN, ABC Channels Just As NFL Season Heats Up (original) (raw)

from the grow-up-and-do-business-like-adults dept

For the last decade or so, U.S. cable TV customers have been plagued by a steady parade of content blackouts as cable providers and broadcasters bicker over new programming contracts.

For the end user, so-called “retransmission feuds” usually go something like this: a broadcaster demands a cable company pay significantly more money to carry the same content. The pay TV provider balks, and one side or the other blacks out the aforementioned content. Consumers spend a few months paying for content they can’t access, while the two sides bicker and try to turn the consumer against the other guy.

Eventually a new confidential deal is struck, customers face a higher bill, and never get any sort of refund for being unable to access programming they paid for. Wash, rinse, repeat. Over and over again. With regulators largely sitting on their hands as consumers get the short end of the stick.

The latest such standoff is between Charter (Spectrum) and Disney Corporation, with Spectrum’s 14 million cable TV customers losing access to ABC and ESPN channels after the two sides couldn’t agree on a new contract like grown adults.

Disney blames Charter; Charter blames Disney; and regulators are nowhere to be found as Charter customers pay for 20 Disney channels they can’t watch just as the NFL season heats up. The details kind of matter; ESPN is threatening going straight to consumer with its own streaming app; Charter is threatening to dismantle the cable model and offer users a hodgepodge of smaller packages:

“Charter claims in part that Disney wants a deal that would require the operator to pay license fees even for customers who do not receive Disney content while also putting more restrictions on Charter’s ability to create more flexible programming packaging. That, Charter, argued, would lead to more consumer price increases. Disney, meanwhile, has issued statements that it has been successful in cutting deals with other pay-TV providers with rates and terms that “are driven by the marketplace.”

But in another way the underlying facts of the dispute don’t matter. Because if historical trends hold, the two companies will simply strike a secret new deal a week or two after this story is published and nothing will truly fundamentally or structurally change in the way either do business.

Consumers will continue to pay significantly higher prices for the same content and services, and nobody in any position of regulatory authority will even dare suggest that maybe cable and broadcast companies find ways to strike business deals like adults without screwing over millions of paying customers.

Filed Under: blackout, cable, fcc, nfl season, retrans feud, retransmission fights, streaming, tv, video
Companies: charter, charter spectrum, disney, espn