Carlos Alcaraz

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In a significant carriage dispute, Disney’s TV channels, including ABC, ESPN, FX and Freeform, have gone dark on Charter Spectrum, the country’s second-largest cable TV provider, with 14.7 million subscribers.

The blackout happened at a critical time, with ESPN’s networks broadcasting both the U.S. Open tennis tournament (in the middle of Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz’s match), as well as a college football game between Utah and the University of Florida.

“We’ve been in ongoing negotiations with Charter Communications for some time and have not yet agreed to a new market-based agreement,” Disney said in a statement Thursday, acknowledging the blackout. “Disney Entertainment has successful deals in place with pay TV providers of all types and sizes across the country, and the rates and terms we are seeking in this renewal are driven by the marketplace. We’re committed to reaching a mutually agreed upon resolution with Charter and we urge them to work with us to minimize the disruption to their customers.”

Spectrum, meanwhile, launched a website to give its customers its perspective on the dispute:

“The Walt Disney Company has removed their programming from Spectrum which creates hardship for our customers. We offered Disney a fair deal, yet they are demanding an excessive increase,” the company wrote in a note to customers. “They also want to limit our ability to provide greater customer choice in programming packages forcing you to take and pay for channels you may not want.”

“The rising cost of programming is the single greatest factor in higher cable TV prices, and we are fighting hard to hold the line on programming rates imposed on us by companies like Disney,” the note continued.

Disney has found itself in a handful of carriage disputes over the past two years. Last October, Disney’s channels, including ESPN and ABC, went dark on the satellite TV service Dish Network and its Sling TV streaming offering in a similar dispute. The channels were offline for a couple of days before the companies reached a deal.

And in late 2021, Disney’s channels went dark on YouTube TV, but also returned after a deal was reached in a couple of days.

In the case of Spectrum, however, the stakes are higher. Spectrum has as many TV subscribers as Dish and YouTube TV combined, and is expected to pass Comcast as the largest pay-TV provider in the U.S. later this year.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based cable company has also been trying to rework its offerings to split live sports from general entertainment. Its new packages include one with regional sports networks (RSNs) and some national sports channels, and a cheaper package without them. It is not immediately clear whether Spectrum wanted Disney to agree to allow a split between its ESPN channels and its other entertainment channels.

Carriage disputes in which channels are actually pulled from channel lineups are rare (the companies often end up cutting a last-minute deal, as Fox and DirecTV did last year), but they can be disruptive when they do happen.

Local TV stations owned by Nexstar have been dark on DirecTV for nearly two months as those companies haggle over a deal, and in one of the more famous disputes, HBO went dark on Dish Network for nearly three years until those companies were able to come to a new agreement in 2021.