PROGRAMMING CHANGES

Dish Network, Sling TV Quietly Drop Disney Channels

A lot of college football fans will be wondering what happened after 20 of Disney’s channels went dark overnight.

Dish Network and Sling TV have pulled all of Disney’s 20 television channels off its services after failing to renew a deal. Dish put a statement out overnight, saying Disney had asked for a $1 billion increase in fees and was demanding that Dish include ESPN and ESPN2 on its TV packages. “Disney has exploited its market position to increase fees without regard for the public viewing experience,” Brian Neylon, EVP and group president of Dish TV, said in a statement. “Clearly, Disney insists on prioritizing greed above American viewers, especially sports fans and families with children who watch their content.” In response, Disney saying Dish had “declined to reach a “fair, market-based” offer. “After months of negotiating in good faith, Dish has declined to reach a fair, market-based agreement with us for continued distribution of our networks,” Disney said in a statement, per Variety. “As a result, their Dish and Sling TV subscribers have lost access to our unrivaled portfolio of live sports and news plus kids, family and general entertainment programming from the ABC-owned television stations, the ESPN networks, the Disney-branded channels, Freeform, the FX networks, the National Geographic channels and BabyTV.”