Walt
Disney
and
Charter Communications
have come to an agreement to end an 11-day long channel blackout that has kept nearly 15 million Spectrum cable subscribers without college football, U.S. Open tennis, Good Morning America, and Dancing With the Stars—just in time for Monday Night Football.
It doesn’t settle the debate over the role of cable-TV in the streaming era, instead largely preserving the status quo.
The media company and the cable operator said in a joint statement on Monday they had reached an agreement to immediately restore channels including ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel, National Geographic, and FX. Charter got concessions from Disney, including the right to bundle advertising-supported tiers of the Disney+ and ESPN+ streaming services with certain packages of TV channels. Disney will get to charge a higher rate for its channels.
The deal came together just in time for Monday night’s National Football League matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets, to be aired on ESPN. Spectrum has a large customer base in New York state.
Investors responded positively to the agreement. Disney stock (ticker: DIS) closed up 1.2% on Monday, while Charter (CHTR) jumped 3.2%. The
S&P 500
traded about 0.7% higher.
The Disney-Charter feud had weighed on stocks of other media companies that are in the midst of transitions from cable-centric to streaming business models. News of an agreement reversed some of those declines on Monday. Shares of
Warner Bros. Discovery
(WBD) rose 2.3%.
Paramount Global
(PARA) jumped as much as 6%, only to close down 0.8%.
Comcast
(CMCSA), which is the nation’s largest cable provider and also owns NBCUniversal, saw its shares tick up 0.5%.
“Our collective goal has always been to build an innovative model for the future,” said Disney CEO Robert Iger and Charter CEO Chris Winfrey in a joint statement. “This deal recognizes both the continued value of linear television and the growing popularity of streaming services while addressing the evolving needs of our consumers.”
Under the new agreement, Charter will include the ad-supported Disney+ with its Spectrum TV Select package and ESPN+ will be included with a more sports-centric package. Disney plans to launch a more comprehensive direct-to-consumer version of ESPN in the coming years, which will also be available to Spectrum subscribers.
Charter will pay Disney a wholesale rate for Disney+ and ESPN+, which retail for $8 and $10 a month with ads, respectively. The cable company will also market Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ to its Spectrum broadband-only subscribers for sale at retail rates.
Certain
Verizon Communications
(VZ) wireless plans include access to Disney+, and others can purchase Disney’s streaming services via Verizon. Comcast has had some success with bundling NBC’s Peacock with Xfinity broadband plans.
Streamers want to minimize churn, or the percentage of customers who cancel each month. People tend to rarely switch home internet or phone providers. By bundling Disney+ with Spectrum broadband, it could help Disney lower churn.
Disney will increase its affiliate fees, or the rates that cable companies pay networks to include their channel in their bundles, according to several reports citing people familiar with the matter. Pricing terms of the agreement were not disclosed by the companies.
Charter won’t restore all of Disney’s channels that had been included under the previous agreement. Disney Junior, Freeform, FXX, and Nat Geo Wild are among the networks not being renewed.
Write to Nicholas Jasinski at [email protected]
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