A broadcast disagreement between Disney and YouTube TV is reportedly leading to $30 million in weekly losses for Disney, as noted by Morgan Stanley.
Following failed contract negotiations in late October, around 10 million subscribers of YouTube TV lost access to channels such as ESPN and ABC, which has particularly upset sports enthusiasts.
The disruption for Disney started on October 30th, affecting broadcasts of various programs including Sports Center with Scott Van Pelt, 9-1-1: Nashville, and Grey’s Anatomy. This incident is being described as one of the largest television outages in recent memory, impacting over 10 million viewers.
According to Morgan Stanley, Disney may face a revenue cut of up to $60 million from its YouTube channel.
Analyst Ben Swinburne adjusted his estimate for Disney’s quarterly net income down by $25 million, moving it from $1.55 billion to $1.52 billion.
YouTube is also experiencing financial repercussions from this conflict. Google is providing a $20 credit to new customers, but the platform is losing out on advertising revenue from the Disney Channel. Additionally, some users have opted to cancel their YouTube subscriptions due to the outage.
Disney has claimed that YouTube has refused to meet its payment demands. In contrast, Google argues that agreeing to Disney’s price hikes would require it to increase rates for its services.
In a statement last month, Disney remarked, “Regrettably, Google’s YouTube TV has opted to deny our subscribers access to valued content by not paying a fair price for our channels, including ESPN and ABC. If a new agreement isn’t reached, viewers will lose access to our programming, which includes a top-tier lineup of live sports, such as the NFL and NBA, along with college football. Google, valued at $3 trillion, is leveraging its market power to diminish competition and undermine industry-standard terms that have been successfully negotiated with other distributors.”
