YouTube TV to Drop Fox Channels If Agreement Is Not Reached

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Both companies have a deadline of 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday

The YouTube TV logo appears on the screen of a smartphone and in the background on the computer screen in Reno, United States, on December 15, 2024. (Photo by Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(Image credit: Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

With the start of another football season, a new carriage dispute has arisen.

This time it’s Fox, which has been unable to renew a new content partnership with YouTube TV. In an email sent to subscribers on Monday, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) said: “[I]f we are unable to reach an agreement with Fox by 5 PM ET on August 27, 2025, their content may become unavailable. If this happens, this will impact channels like the Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News, and Fox Sports, as well as any Library recordings you have from these channels.”

YouTube said it hopes to reach a mutual agreement “without passing on additional costs to our subscribers.” It also said it will give a $10 credit to subscribers if Fox’s content becomes unavailable “for an extended period of time.”

Fox has launched a “keepfox.com” website designed to keep viewers updated and issued the following statement:

“While Fox remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,“ Fox said. ”We are alerting FOX viewers who are YouTube TV subscribers that they could lose access to much of their favorite news, sports, entertainment and local station programming unless Google engages in a meaningful way soon.”

As the costs of sports rights continue to soar, the networks are using the popularity of football as a cudgel against pay-TV providers who are also losing viewers to cord-cutting. TV carriage disputes have become fairly common during the late summer, early fall time period, during the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons; in 2023, Charter Communications and Dish settled their disputes with Disney at the beginning of the season; Nexstar Media Group and Verizon Communications had a similar conflict in 2022.

As of the beginning of 2025, YouTube TV was estimated to have 9.4 million subscribers, making it the fourth-largest U.S. pay-TV provider after Charter, Comcast and DirecTV. ‌

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Tom Butts
Tom Butts

Tom has covered the broadcast technology market for the past 25 years, including three years handling member communications for the National Association of Broadcasters followed by a year as editor of Video Technology News and DTV Business executive newsletters for Phillips Publishing. In 1999 he launched digitalbroadcasting.com for internet B2B portal Verticalnet. He is also a charter member of the CTA's Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. Since 2001, he has been editor-in-chief of TV Tech (www.tvtech.com), the leading source of news and information on broadcast and related media technology and is a frequent contributor and moderator to the brand’s Tech Leadership events.