Disney and YouTube TV reach carriage deal, ending two-week blackout

Deal restores ABC and ESPN after two weeks

The blackout began just before midnight ET on Thursday 30 October 2025, when the previous carriage agreement expired, Variety reported. ABC, ESPN and the rest of Disney's networks dropped off the YouTube TV guide. YouTube TV, which launched in 2017, had about 10 million subscribers at the time. The standoff lasted two weeks. Awful Announcing reported the resolution, saying the deal closed on Friday night, about a day after the soft deadline of Disney's quarterly earnings call.

ESPN and ABC are back in the guide, Awful Announcing reported.

Disney also asked YouTube TV to restore ABC for Election Day as a matter of public interest, according to a Disney statement. YouTube TV refused, saying a one-day return would confuse subscribers.

The rate fight behind the blackout

ESPN is the most expensive network in the U.S. It costs distributors more than $10 a month per pay-TV subscriber, CNBC reported. Disney has signed deals with Comcast and Charter, the two largest U.S. pay-TV providers. People familiar with the matter told CNBC it offered YouTube TV terms in line with those deals. But YouTube TV wants better rates than the third-largest pay-TV provider would typically get, because it is the only distributor of size that is actually growing, those people said.

Awful Announcing reported that YouTube TV wanted its rates to reflect that status, while Disney wanted rates that justified its investments and would not trigger clauses in its other distribution contracts that would force it to give lower rates to other companies.

CNBC called YouTube TV the third-largest pay-TV provider. Deadline said it ranks No. 3 or No. 4, depending on whose numbers you believe.

Awful Announcing, citing Sports Business Journal, reported the two sides were still "far apart" on price.

The bundle is shrinking. Awful Announcing reported that U.S. pay-TV homes have fallen from about 100 million in the mid-2010s to about 65 million, and that ESPN began paying an average of $2.6 billion a year for NBA rights in 2025. It said Disney needs to extract as much as it can from distributors like YouTube TV to make those economics work.

What the blackout cost

Morgan Stanley analysts Benjamin Swinburne and Thomas Yeh estimated Disney was losing about $30 million a week, nearly $4.3 million a day, Variety reported. They modeled 14 days of blackout as a $60 million revenue headwind. The note also estimated each week of blackout would cut Disney's adjusted earnings per share by 2 cents. Awful Announcing separately estimated Disney was losing about $5 million a day.

Variety reported that a survey fielded last week found 24% of YouTube TV subscribers said they had already canceled or intended to cancel service over the blackout.

A YouTube representative told Variety that churn was "manageable" and did not align with the survey's findings. YouTube TV also offered subscribers a one-time $20 credit, a move first reported by The Athletic.

Disney's streaming alternatives during the blackout

Disney had alternatives this time. A veteran pay-TV executive told Deadline the company now has the ESPN app and controls Fubo, which it can combine with Hulu + Live TV. ESPN Unlimited, launched on 21 August, drew 2.1 million subscribers through 30 September, according to research firm Antenna. Disney closed its acquisition of Fubo during the talks, giving it 6 million subscribers across Fubo and Hulu + Live TV.

What the deal leaves open

The terms that surfaced concern integration and bundling, not price. Awful Announcing reported that all ESPN content, including everything on the ESPN Unlimited tier, will be available to YouTube TV subscribers inside the platform. Distributors want that arrangement because it keeps viewers inside their app and yields more viewing data, while programmers prefer viewers in their own apps.

Disney+ and Hulu are the exception. They will appear in select bundles, but their content will not sit inside the YouTube TV app through Primetime Channels, Awful Announcing reported. YouTube TV will also be able to include Disney's networks in genre-specific skinny bundles, the most valuable of which will be targeted at sports fans.