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    Disney, Spectrum direct customers to other TV services as dispute keeping ESPN off air continues

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments1279 Views
    The ESPN logo is seen, Sept. 16, 2013, prior to an NFL football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers in Cincinnati. Both sides of a dispute that has left nearly 15 million cable TV subscribers without ESPN or other networks affiliated with The Walt Disney Co. are directing customers to other services where they can watch television. (AP Photo/David Kohl, File)

    By David Bauder, Media Writer

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    Both sides of a dispute that has left nearly 15 million cable TV subscribers without ESPN or other networks affiliated with The Walt Disney Co. are directing customers to other services where they can watch television.

    The offers speak to the unusual nature of the business dispute between Disney and Charter Communications, and doesn't auger a quick resolution.

    Charter is telling its Spectrum TV customers about a special deal being offered by the Fubo live television streaming service to get two months at discounts of 25% or 30%, depending on the plan.

    "I've covered carriage disputes for more years than I would like to remember, and I don't recall a TV provider ever offering its customers a discount to another TV provider during a channel blackout," wrote journalist Phillip Swann, who runs tvanswerman.com.

    Spectrum had no comment Tuesday on the offer's implications.

    Disney, meanwhile, is also offering upset Spectrum customers online links to sign up for other services, like Hulu, Fubo, Sling and YouTubeTV. A Disney representative said that "discussions continue" with Charter and had no other updates.

    The business battle resulted in ESPN, ABC, FX, National Geographic and Disney-branded stations going abruptly dark on Thursday night for Charter's Spectrum TV subscribers. ABC-TV was also cut in seven markets, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

    Carriage disputes, involving what cable or satellite customers will pay to carry specific networks on their systems, are not uncommon.

    Yet Charter is arguing that the number of people cutting off their cable subscriptions over the past few years means the business is changing rapidly, and any new deal must reflect that. It wants Disney to give customers more flexibility to restrict "bundling," which requires them to pay for networks they don't necessarily want. It also wants Disney to offer its ad-supported streaming services for free as part of the deal, saying it has moved some of its best TV programming over to streaming.

    Charter, which has broadband as well as cable customers, is anticipating a day when ESPN transitions to a direct-to-consumer streaming service, said analyst Rich Greenfield of Lightshed Partners.

    "Could this end up being a watershed event for the linear TV business that also blows up the entire sports media ecosystem?" Greenfield wrote in an analysis. "Sure. However, we have lived through enough of these battles to know that they usually end in an agreement."

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    Tags:ABCCharterESPNSpectrum TVThe Walt Disney Co.



    EU accuses TikTok of “addictive design” that harms children, seeks changes to protect users

    Friday, February 6, 2026
    The icon for the TikTok video sharing app is seen on a smartphone in Marple Township, Pa., Feb. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

    The European Union on Friday accused TikTok of breaching the bloc's digital rules with "addictive design" features that lead to compulsive use by children, in preliminary charges that strike at the heart of the popular video sharing app's operating model.

    EU regulators said their two-year investigation found that TikTok hasn't done enough to assess how features such as autoplay and infinite scroll could harm the physical and mental health of users, including minors and "vulnerable adults."

    The European Commission said it believes TikTok should change the "basic design" of its service. The commission is the EU's executive arm and enforcer of the 27-nation bloc's Digital Services Act, a sweeping rulebook that requires social media companies to clean up their platforms and protect users, under threat of hefty fines.

    TikTok denied the accusations.

    "The Commission's preliminary findings present a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to challenge these findings through every means available to us," the company said in a statement.

    TikTok's features including infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and highly personalized recommender systems "lead to the compulsive use of the app, especially for our kids, and this poses major risks to their mental health and wellbeing," Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said at a press briefing in Brussels.

    "The measures that TikTok has in place are simply not enough," he said.

    The company now has a chance to defend itself and reply to the commission's findings. Regnier said "if they don't do this properly," Brussels could issue a so-called non-compliance decision and possible fine worth up to 6% of... Read More

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