AT & T and Disney accept temporary extension for ESPN, Disney, Freeform, SEC network and others to avoid power outage at the moment – The Streamable

Earlier this week, DIRECTV and AT & T TV NOW customers were greeted with the message that they could lose ESPN, Disney Channel and Freeform.

@DIRECTVService can you explain that? Why do I see that espn / abc can be dropped #directv pic.twitter.com/NPglhT8erV

– Dan Vilardo (@DanVilardo) September 10, 2019

Now that the past midnight deadline has passed, channels will still play on DIRECTV and AT & T TV NOW. Although these agreements do not appear to have been officially renewed, our sources confirmed that the companies continued to negotiate after the deadline, with the channels remaining online. The extensions would have been as short as a few hours, several extensions having been put in place since the deadline set last night.

If both parties can not reach an agreement, channels such as ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ACC Network, SEC Network, Longhorn Network, Freeform and Locals owned and operated by ABC will all be deleted. ABC has local channels in New York, Louisiana, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Fresno-Visalia, California.

Complete list of channels

AT & T responded with the following statement:

We are disappointed that The Walt Disney Co. has invited its viewers to participate in negotiations. We are on the side of consumer choice and value, and we want each of the local ABC stations and the national sports and entertainment chains of Disney to be on our list of AT & T TV customers. We hope to avoid any interruption of services that interest some of our customers.

Our goal is always to provide the content our customers want at a value that suits them as well. We will continue to fight for this here and appreciate their patience as we deal with this issue.

In their own statement, Disney said:

"Our contract with AT & T for the ABC, ESPN, Disney and Freeform networks expiring soon, so we have a responsibility to inform our viewers of the potential loss of our programming. However, we remain fully committed to reaching an agreement and hope to do so. "

The last distribution deal comes just six weeks after CBS nationwide was dropped on DirecTV's main markets and nationally on DIRECTV NOW (now known as AT & T TV NOW). . Previously, Nexstar, the largest owner of local affiliates, had seen its abandoned chains: DirecTV, DIRECTV NOW and AT & T U-Verse.

Although both parties have reached an agreement, AT & T has been dealing with content conflicts since the beginning of July. Although it is highly unlikely that Disney sees his chains abandoned by DIRECTV, it will probably go up to the wire. In the spring, the renegotiated service deals with Viacom and A + E, while abandoning the NFL network.