Disney Yanks ESPN Off Charter Cable

Walt Disney Co. said customers of Charter Communications Inc. can no longer watch its TV networks because of a contract dispute, depriving millions of viewers of access to the sports network ESPN just as football season gets underway.

Bloomberg reports Charter is the second-largest cable provider in the US with more than 14 million residential video customers for its Spectrum TV service. Many of them live in large cities such as Los Angeles and New York.

Media companies such as Disney have fought with pay-TV providers for years over the value of channels like ESPN and Freeform, often leading to contract disputes and temporary blackouts. The rising cost of TV packages and the number of channels included in those packages has prompted tens of millions of people to stop paying for live TV.

Yet people in the US still rely on live television for the majority of their TV viewing, especially when it comes to sports. Disney has the largest assortment of sports rights in the country and its channels will be in high demand with college football season underway and the National Football League season starting next week.

“We’re committed to reaching a mutually agreed upon resolution with Charter and we urge them to work with us to minimize the disruption to their customers,” Disney said in a statement.

Charter said it was willing to pay a “significant rate increase” despite falling ratings at most of Disney’s networks, but that it wants to give its customers more flexibility in what channels they receive. “The current video ecosystem is broken,” the company said in a statement.