ESPN and other Disney-owned channels have gone dark on DirecTV after the sides failed to come to terms on a new carriage agreement, a business impasse that reflects the broader economic pain spreading throughout the pay TV sector.
The blackout, coming on the kickoff weekend for ABC’s college football football coverage and a little more than halfway through ESPN’s coverage of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, affects most of DirecTV’s 11 million-plus subscribers in the U.S. DirecTV asserted that Disney made the decision to pull the plug as negotiations were under way. Disney leaders argued they had no choice when the contract expiration hit Sunday afternoon. Disney maintains that
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