On Thursday night, Spectrum customers lost access to ESPN and the rest of companies owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company, accentuating turmoil in negotiations for cable distribution agreements. The timing of the ordeal happened moments before kickoff of a highly-anticipated college football matchup between Florida and Utah, with the platform instead displaying a message to its customers. Part of the announcement conveyed that Disney was looking for an excessive increase in its cable fees that would affect all customers, Spectrum shared on a webcast Friday morning. The calamity could be permanent, but nonetheless has already agitated sports fans and compelled some of them to outright switch service providers.
Tampa radio host Aaron Jacobson is among that group, unable to watch the game on Thursday because of the stalemate in negotiations. No resolution has been reached in the dispute, leaving Spectrum customers in the dark pertaining to all Disney programming. Last July, ESPN was in 71.325 million homes, falling short of the cable distribution of FOX Sports 1 for the first time in its history.
While ESPN has a direct-to-consumer product in the works, it is unknown when it will launch, but the ordeal accentuates the changing media ecosystem. Jacobson shared on 95.3 WDAE that he pays $60 a month for Spectrum and came off as incredulous towards the entire situation, clearly frustrated and fed up.
“I’m getting rid of all of it,” Jacobson submitted. “I’m quitting TV forever. I’ll figure it out.”
Co-host Pat Donovan shared that he switched from DIRECTV to YouTube TV, affirming that he only had the cable service because of NFL Sunday Ticket. Despite his reluctance, he decided to cut the cord at the behest of his wife and found that he also needed to purchase Bally Sports Plus to watch the Tampa Bay Rays and Tampa Bay Lightning on the local regional sports network, Bally Sports Sun.
“It’s not ideal – don’t get me wrong,” Donovan said. “I can’t ‘last channel’ from Bally watching the Rays to say a college football game. If the Rays had been on last night, it would have been difficult to go back and forth between Florida-Utah and the Rays because it’s on two different apps.”
Donovan and show producer Seth Kushner urged Jacobson to capitulate and purchase YouTube TV, with Donovan sharing that it has not frozen on him once since his purchase. Kushner also pointed out the irony in the situation in that they always used to discuss cable transitioning to become more à la carte, granting consumers the ability to choose which services they want. Even so, they both understand that the occurrence has a sense of wrongdoing placed on both sides.
“ESPN is something we should always have,” Donovan said. “You should never have to question whether or not you’re going to have ESPN on.”
“They’re using that against you,” added Kushner. “They’re using that to try to put pressure on whatever deal they’re trying to work out with ESPN, ABC or whatever it is.”
In a state of flux where streaming has rendered itself the predominant television viewing functionality, Jacobson has grown frustrated. The incident with The Walt Disney Company going off the air during prime time hours only emphasizes the fact that declining subscriptions and increasing fees are threatening the viability of the traditional cable industry as we know it.
ESPN reportedly charges the most money to cable providers to carry its channel, coming in at $9.42. As the company emerges from company-mandated layoffs and looks to retain media rights for the National Basketball Association, there is a chance that price hikes could continue.
“I’m going to cry,” Jacobson said. “I just want things to be the way they used to.”
