Last year, Disney’s fight with Charter Communications lasted until the day of the first Monday Night Football game of the year. This one could last longer.
Via Sports Business Journal, DirecTV CFO Ray Carpenter told reporters and analysts that the company will fight Disney “as long as it needs to.”
Carpenter said it’s not a “run of the mill” carriage fight.
“This is not the kind of dispute where we’re haggling over percentage point on a rate,” Carpenter said. “This is really about changing the model in a way that gives everyone confidence that this industry can survive.”
The Disney-owned networks exited DirecTV on Sunday, during the U.S. Open and not long before the kickoff of the LSU-USC game in Las Vegas.
The fight centers on DirecTV’s desire to unbundle Disney’s networks, so that customers aren’t paying for content they don’t watch.
“You have to give Disney credit in that they’ve not tried to hide their intentions,” Carpenter said. “Not only at their public statements, but also, frankly, their performance. Disney has publicly indicated they intend to exploit the pocketbooks of our customers and other pay TV customers to fund and support their DTC apps while they shift the investment into the content and the quality of that content away from linear channels.”
Carpenter also made a snide comment about sports fans not wanting to watch cartons — and children not “paying for the rock skipping competition that they were just recently holding on, I think it was ESPN2 or ESPN3.”
Actually, kids would be the perfect demographic for rock skipping. Assuming today’s kids skip rocks. Which also assumes they ever leave the house.