Posted on 09/01/2023 6:56:51 PM PDT by Libloather
ESPN and other Disney-owned channels have gone dark on Charter's Spectrum cable service, as the two companies intensify their dispute over fees.
Disney pulled ESPN, ABC and its other cable channels off Spectrum on Thursday night, the eve of college football's first big games and the middle of US Open tennis coverage.
Spectrum serves huge markets including New York and Los Angeles and has some 32 million customers, many of whom are now fuming at the loss of sports coverage.
At the moment Disney pulled the plug, ESPN was carrying a college football game between Florida and No. 14 Utah while ESPN2 was showing the US Open tennis tournament.
'We're very disappointed for our fans and viewers around the country that Spectrum and Charter could not resolve their dispute with Disney, resulting in a loss of ESPN coverage of Thursday night's matches,' USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said in a statement.
College football season begins in earnest on Saturday, with ESPN scheduled to air four major games: No. 20 Oklahoma vs Arkansas State, Auburn vs UMass, No. 23 Texas A&M vs New Mexico, and UCLA vs Coastal Carolina.
ABC is scheduled to carry No. 12 Tennessee vs Virginia, No. 10 Washington vs Boise State, and No. 21 North Carolina vs South Carolina.
ESPN's 'College GameDay' has long reigned as the preeminent Saturday morning pregame show, but faces fresh competition from Fox and its upstart 'Big Noon Kickoff' and risks loosing fans if the dispute drags out.
Other cities where Charter Spectrum is the major cable carrier include Dallas/Fort Worth; Orlando, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis; Cleveland; Cincinnati; Milwaukee; and Las Vegas.
The dispute is mainly over sports network ESPN, which does not have a streaming service and is a big cable attraction, despite losing subscribers each year to...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
ESPN a big reason for high cable rates.
These squabbles happen and, like a strike,
can be timed just right to inflict maximum
damage.
Paraphrasing TV critic Steve Beverly:
“Grandma doesn’t want ESPN but she
has to pay astronomical rates because
of high sports team fees”.
Not like you can pick and choose
only the channels you want any pay
only for _them_...unless you refuse to pay
for a “higher tier”.
Last night was in Wilkes Barre PA
and couldn’t get the Bob Barker tribute
because the motel’s DirecTV was barred
from carrying CBS—or NBC—due to a squabble with the owner of the affiliates,
Nexstar—and I read online that’s been
in effect for months.
So in my case I downloaded the free
CBS app, clicked on it and confirmed
my own home subscription to cable
(Xfinity) and watched it on my
phone via WYOU-TV and CBS.
So, still available but not on
the DirecTV.
CordCutterNews:
At the time, Nexstar said DIRECTV rejected Nexstar’s offer to extend the current distribution agreement to Oct. 31, 2023, to give both sides more time to negotiate. In total, 159 Nexstar-owned local TV stations are now dark on DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and U-Verse. NewsNation and The CW have also gone dark on DIRECTV.Aug 12, 2023
Thank you.
Most Welcome.
Have you seen Michael Jordan lately? The man is huge, as in FAT. He’s a shell of his former self.
Have to keep my WiFi for work but I guess it’s time to turn the cable box in...
“I have wifi through Spectrum, “
I envy you! The house we sold had Spectrum and I had no idea how lucky we were until our new house can’t get Spectrum. Spectrum is unlimited, and I assumed all providers were, too. They certainly are NOT.
They advertise “unlimited”, but after you’ve reached a certain number of GBs, you’re throttled back to a level that essentially is unusable. Spectrum doesn’t do that.
What is interesting these days is that in Spectrum cable TV markets even if you don’t have cable TV you are still paying child groomers like Disney.
Why?
In the case of a company like Spectrum the non cable TV services make huge profits while the cable TV division is a loser.
That means that when you subscribe to the non cable services you are subsidizing the cable TV division.
Spectrum keeps the losing cable TV because they use it to market their other profitable products to a “captive” audience in “package” deals.
If they got out of the cable TV business entirely they would anger their cable TV customers and lose a lot of non cable TV revenue.
Bottom line: Spectrum is between a rock and a hard place—meanwhile non cable TV subscribers continue to subsidize cable TV.
There are literally hundreds of sports betting sites that stream complete games for free. Disney is being incredibly short sighted.
How to watch Alabama vs. Texas without Spectrum: Full list of live streams with ESPN and free trials
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