
“We viewed the core of this dispute centering around how each of these legacy companies would participate in the economics of the future business model and its importance of how contracts will be established across the entire industry,” Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Morris wrote Monday morning. Instead, Charter said in a statement that it would offer Disney’s direct-to-consumer services to its customers “for purchase at retail rates.”
#SPECTRUM BUNDLE DEAL FOR FREE#
Early in the negotiations, Charter had demanded the ability to offer those apps for free to its broadband customers - but Disney refused to bend on that point.
#SPECTRUM BUNDLE DEAL TV#
The deal acknowledges that the way that people watch TV has quickly evolved into a system in which on-demand options through streaming apps have become more popular with consumers than traditional linear channels.Ĭharter secured the ability to sell Disney’s streaming apps to its millions of additional customers who receive only Spectrum broadband internet service.

Charter’s chief executive, Christopher Winfrey, said early on that his company was prepared to “move on” from carrying Disney channels, which would have marked a major disruption in the entertainment landscape - and diminished Disney’s clout.īut in the end, executives on both sides wielded tremendous leverage - and they worked together to hammer out an agreement that preserves the cable bundle for now. Some analysts had warned that a failure to resolve the dispute would have expedited the unraveling of the traditional pay-TV bundle. Charter eventually will be able to offer the ESPN channel as a streaming add-on when Disney takes that service directly to consumers. The cable company gained the ability to provide Disney’s ad-supported streaming apps - including Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ - along with Spectrum’s television service. The companies announced a new agreement Monday that requires Charter to pay higher fees to distribute Disney programming. and cable giant Charter Communications reached a truce that restored Disney channels to the Spectrum pay-TV service. Following a more-than-10-day ESPN and ABC station blackout that infuriated customers and threatened to accelerate the demise of the cable bundle, Walt Disney Co.
