Charter Drops FXX, Disney XD, And Freeform In Carriage Dispute Resolution
Every Simpsons Ever...now only on your Disney+ Basic plan?
After 10 days and with hours until the Monday Night Football season was about to begin, Charter Communications and The Walt Disney Company ended their dispute that left 14.7 million Spectrum cable subscribers without any Disney-owned channels. As a result, those same subscribers to the No. 2 cable operator in the U.S. have just some of those channels, dubbed a “more curated” package, returned to them.
FXX, Disney XD, Disney Junior, and Freeform lead the list that also consists of FX Movie Channel (FXM), Baby TV, Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo Mundo. Not only does this come in the midst of the final season of long-runner Archer, as well as Grown-ish, Freeform and FXX have the cable rights to reruns of The Simpsons and Family Guy, those without Hulu or Disney+ will need to rely on local syndication to see them. In addition, this leaves Spectrum in nearly 15 million fewer homes than Adult Swim, which their subscribers will have to resort to for King of the Hill and Bob’s Burgers. Recently it was revealed that the two networks will share all episodes going forward rather than being split 1-8 and 9-onward. Future seasons of Dave and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia are also going to see viewership impacted if they don’t return on the next deal.
The deal also will include the ad-supported tier of Disney+, Basic, to Spectrum TV Select subscribers, as part of a wholesale arrangement, and will include ESPN+ will be provided to Spectrum TV Select Plus subscribers. While this does alleviate the absences of Disney XD and Disney Junior, the former becoming mostly reruns of current Disney TVA shows with none of its own originals left, FXX is just as Hulu-tied as FX is, and Freeform is pretty exclusive with it too, same next-day streaming arrangements (though not as tight as to have its own originals produced for the streamer). The final quarter in the calendar year due to the longstanding events 31 (formerly 13) Nights of Halloween, 25 Days of Christmas, and the Kickoff to Christmas in between.
FXX and Freeform will continue to produce original series, according to Disney Entertainment Co-Chairmen Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro. “Our commitment to all our brands and the people who work for them is unchanged,” the trio declared in a memo today in reference to the availability changes. “We will continue to program these channels and deliver the same high-quality shows to our fans.”
This is still probably a gamechanger for cable, as if one provider drops these networks, any of them can. Let alone what this means for other channels of similar stature.
