By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – @tvanswerman
Charter’s Spectrum TV last night lost 26 Disney-owned channels (including ESPN right before college football season’s first full weekend) due to a carriage dispute between the two companies. Since the blackout began last night around 8 p.m. ET, Spectrum TV subscribers have taken to social media and the TV Answer Man comments section to register their complaints. Some people are mad at both companies while others have issues with one or the other. But the consistent sentiment in nearly every comment is that they are mad. Very mad. Here’s a sampling of the comments that have been posted at TVAnswerMan.com. (Note: They were not edited. Each comment is as written.)
“Disney and ESPN are useless anyway. Everything Disney has touched over the last 10 years has turned to trash. ESPN has little to do with quality sports anymore. I wish they would leave them off.” — John Dixon.
“We watch the ESPN channels all the time – we are sports lovers and are quite upset with money grabbing Disney. Now all Disney products will be boycotted by us and our family and friends.” – Carol Bowers.
“Disney doesn’t need money. I say to heck with paying more for their channels. Greater things on tv other than Disney’s Networks.I say, let them go.” — Allen Austin.
“WTF It is all about money!!!!!!” — Gregory C. Cichy.
“They (ESPN) should not be allowed to broadcast football games.” — Marvin Friedland.
“They wait till the UF and UTah game to spring this crap! Time to boycott Disney out of Florida Now! They’re a woke ass company that has no fricking clew how to run a business. I wish they would of never came to florida, they have become a cancer to this state, creating nothing of value for the state. and i will be passing this on to the governor. Its time to close the doors to disney and run them out of the state, along with all it’s woke workers that want to push their preverted agenda onto hard working florida citizens that just want to live in peace.” — Herbert Brown.
“Why wait until football season to have this dispute Accept Spectrum’s deal give us our channels back.” — Diane Burnett.
“The US Open Tennis 2023 is underway now and is exclusively on ESPN shame on both Disney and Spectrum. Your greed is boundless.” — ‘Mary.’
“I’m sitting here preparing myself to explain this to my 27 year old son with autism… he’s is going to be very upset too day the least. This world is already unforgiving and hard for families like mine. I always thought Disney was more family oriented but I guess greed and money rule this country. I couldn’t care less about Disney but for my son this is going to be a difficult explanation and a long weekend.” — ‘Pamela.’
“So it had to happen when college football start? My dad is an 86 year old man that even bought the pkg so he and my mom (before she passed last year) could watch SEC games especially Ky. Wildcats BB. Such a shame everything has to be about money all the time. My dad can’t afford to pay more than what he already is. Shame on you!!” — ‘Teresa.’
“We pay over 250.00 per month to spectrum, it is their duty to deal with others for customers as we are spectrum customer, shame on them , they have done this during tennis and. Mets, shame, shame.” — ‘Singh.’
“wow!!! cable is high enough, MICKEY& MINNIE has enough money!!!! work this out.” — Marcery Denson.
“time to leave spectum . they just raised my rates 30 $ a month and now they are putting all the customers in another raise the price situation. screw spectrum they new this was coming and waited till the last minute to tell us. I’m done with their price gouging.” — Roger Hamilton.
You can read more comments at the bottom of this article. And if you have comments, you can post them at the bottom of THIS article.
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman
I hope that Charter and Disney never reach a new agreement. As far as I’m concerned, I am done with ESPN for good.
The soap opera is repeating itself. Landlord (Disney) wants more rent. The tenant (Spectrum) says no that’s too much. If the tenant accepts the increase the sub-letter (you) get a larger bill. The landlord then claims the tenant is wrong. Truthiness at work.
Most of the anti- Disney sentiment online are people trying to be Ron Desantis and railing against a “woke” company perceived as “liberal”. Charter is trying to change the negotiation model for these carriage disputes by separating Disney’s cable content from its streaming services in order to set rates, The reality is both companies are losing money to streaming and trying to cut their losses. Binding arbitration should be available as a last resort. But Congress will never pass legislation for this. They have a “hands off” policy and have had such toward these carriage disputes since cable started around the mid-1970’s.