WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has weighed in on the blackout of ABC, ESPN and other Disney programming on YouTube TV with a post on X says that that the two parties “need to get a deal done and end this blackout.”
“People should have the right to watch the programming they paid for — including football,” he added.
After failing to reach a deal on new retransmission consent payments for ABC and a carriage agreement for Disney’s ESPN and other cable channels, the Disney services were removed from the vMVPD at the end of October when the old agreement expired..
Since the dispute first went public in late October, both sides have traded barbs, blaming the other part for the blackout. YouTube TV has attacked Disney for insisting on terms that would push up prices for pay TV subscribers, while Disney complained that “with a $3 trillion market cap, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”
Google and Disney need to get a deal done and end this blackout.People should have the right to watch the programming they paid for — including football.Get it done! https://t.co/GxdXqhRBYdNovember 10, 2025
YouTube has offered subscribers a $20 credit and in a separate post on X said they were "working to negotiate a deal with Disney that pays them fairly for their content and returns their programming to YouTube TV."
Members: We've been working to negotiate a deal with Disney that pays them fairly for their content and returns their programming to YouTube TV. We know it’s been disappointing to lose Disney channels, and in light of the disruption, we’re offering our subscribers a $20 credit.November 10, 2025
