Is Disney Harming Its Customers?
By Movieguide® Contributor
After Disney-owned channels were dropped by DirecTV over a disagreement about how the channels should be bundled, the cable provider is now accusing Disney of harming consumers with its business practices.
To make its thoughts about Disney’s practices known, DirecTV created a website – UnbundleDisney.com – that outlines the predatory and unfair business practices. According to DirecTV, Disney is constantly working to force consumers to pay for content they don’t want while making it harder for them to access the content they do.
DirecTV, for example, wants to pare down the number of Disney-owned channels it offers, cutting out channels like Nat Geo Wild, FXX or Disney XD while maintaining access to more popular channels like ABC or ESPN. Disney, however, maintains that this is too detrimental to its business to be possible.
This, however, is not the case as Disney is all too willing to uncouple its channels to create the sports bundling platform, Venu, with Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox. This competitive advantage Disney was giving itself was part of the reason Venu’s creation was blocked by a judge last month.
But the all-or-nothing approach is only half of the problem, according to DirecTV. The cable provider alleges that Disney is strategically breaking up its content across cable, Disney+ and Hulu and consistently moving it around so consumers have to subscribe to multiple content avenues to access the shows and movies they love.
These problems have proven too difficult to resolve before the companies’ contracts expired, leading to DirecTV subscribers losing access to Disney-owned channels. While the blackout will continue until the dispute is resolved, DirecTV is under more pressure to levy peace with the onset of the NFL season. This problem has caused DirecTV to promise customers the dispute will be resolved soon.
“If you’re concerned about possibly missing one of your favorite teams in the next few weeks, here’s the good news. Fox, CBS, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video televise most of the NFL action, while ESPN/ABC has one game per week,” the cable provider said. “Chances are your favorite team won’t play Monday night until later in the season after we’ve had plenty of time to come to a new agreement.”
To make the blackout even more painless for its subscribers, DirecTV is offering a $20 credit to its subscribers until it reaches a new deal with Disney.
Movieguide® previously reported on the dispute:
DirecTV’s contract with Disney expires this week, but the cable provider will hesitate to renew its relationship if industry-redefining changes do not occur.
The problem comes from Disney’s unwillingness to ungroup its channels requiring an all-or-nothing deal for TV providers. While Disney controls some of the most lucrative channels, such as ESPN or ABC, it also controls niche content like Nat Geo Wild. To cut costs, DirecTV would like to cut out these smaller channels, but Disney does not allow them to do so.
“We’ve hit a ceiling of price that customers are willing to pay, and the only way to try to adjust what people can pay, then, is to offer skinnier bundles,” said DirecTV’s Chief Content Officer, Rob Thun. “And that’s the one thing that is not allowed.”
“We absolutely have to find our way to offering something smaller and less expensive than what we have today,” he added.
