Diamond Sports Group Expected to File Bankruptcy Impacting Bally Sports Which has Rights to MLB, Soccer, etc.

Parent company Diamond Sports Group, which owns Bally Sports, is expected to file for bankruptcy next week (see article from Sportico). As you can imagine, there are all kinds of rumors about what this means for sports streaming with rants about losing viewing of all sports to some services (such as MLB) going to providing all of their games on MLB.TV but charging $300 - $400 per year. All rumors at this point as no one knows what will happen.

I hope this opens up the ability for providers, such as YouTube TV, to be able to provide local sports once again. Again, rumors are flowing that the company going bankrupt means YouTube TV, and others, would not be in the market to provide the sports streams at all. It might be a bit early to figure out what will happen with sports streaming after the dust settles, but I have to think it will be a better arrangement for the fan.

Time will tell if this will help or hinder fans from watching their teams. I am hopeful this will help and there is the possibility that leagues could take over their broadcasts meaning no more blackouts. I cannot help but wonder if part of the reason Bally Sports is failing is because of how limited they were in their reach for customers. Bally Sports was available as a pay service which I am not sure many people purchased. Others had the Bally Sports network through their provider such as Cox, Direct Stream, or recently fuboTV. I know many others who simply did not watch as it was too much of a hassle to get their channels as they were not available on their selected platform or they did not want to pay extra for Bally Sports. Many others that acquired the broadcasts through other means. Make it difficult to watch sports and people will find other ways or stop watching entirely.

To early to tell how the upcoming bankruptcy will impact streaming, but have to believe it will have impact on this season that is fast approaching for MLB. What exactly will be impacted is rumor and guessing, but I expect we will hear something impacting Bally Sports in the near future. I will continue to hope for improvement to the current structure to make it easier and better for fans to watch sports.

Until next time, have a great week! I am prepping for the Super Bowl later this evening. I cannot wait! Go Chiefs!

Contract Dispute Resolved on December 19 Between YouTube TV and Disney Restores Order and ESPN is Back! #YouTubeTV #YTTV #espn #Disney #Contract

 

That did not take long! Disney and YouTube TV resolved their contract dispute in record time. Last week I posted a notice (Disney and YouTube TV Removes Disney Channels) about losing Disney channels which included all ESPN channels and by later in the day on Sunday, December 19, the contract was renewed and channels started appearing.

It is really not surprising how fast the contract was restored. Bowl games happening and everything sports, it has a big draw and as Reddit posts suggested, people were leaving in droves because of the loss. I was upset, but I also thought as indicated in the post last week (see Disney post), I thought it would be resolved within a week or two at the most. I had not plans to jump ship the day after all of my channels disappeared. There were many on Reddit though that did jump ship and were downright nasty in their comments back to YouTube TV about the contract disputes.

We have not heard the details of contract, but YouTube TV did give us a $15 discount for this month because of the problems. I am hopeful that YouTube TV stayed true to their demands and did not give into Disney with the increased prices. I am sure the information will come out in time as to the extent of the contract. YouTube TV has promised that there will not be any price increases after multiple increases the past couple of years.

For now, I am happy to have my channels returned and happy with a $15 refund for this month. Note, for other YouTube TV subscribers, if you have not gone into your settings to add the channels back, you will need to do so before you will see them. Because the channels were taken away when the contract expired, the channels have to be added back to your grid if you are like me and have edited your favorites.

Thank you YouTube TV for working out the deal with Disney to return our channels. For me, I do not care about the kids channels, but I am very happy to have back the ESPN channels and ABC.

Happy TV watching...

Disney and YouTube TV Dispute Removes All Disney Channels from YouTube TV Effective Saturday, December 18 #YouTubeTV #YTTV #Disney #Dispute

Just when I think everything is smooth with my television watching, more contract disputes are announced earlier this week by YouTube TV and Disney. Earlier this week, Disney was warning of loss of Disney channels and at the same time YouTube TV was warning of loss of Disney channels. The agreement was due to expire on Friday, December 17. As Friday approached and expired, I still had all of the affected channels, so I thought perfect, they got it figured out. Then about 11 Saturday morning, I read the update from YouTube TV via Twitter that they did not come to terms with Disney for the channels.

Members, we worked hard to avoid this but were unable to reach a fair deal with Disney. We regret to share that as of December 17, all Disney-owned channels are unavailable on YouTube TV. While Disney content remains off our platform, we’ll decrease our price by $15/month.

— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) December 18, 2021

The channels that are removed include local ABC station, ABC News Live, The Disney Channel, FX, ESPN (all versions), and many others. As noted in the above tweet from YouTube TV, while the contract is being disputed, the cost of YouTube TV goes down $15/month.

YouTube TV recently resolved another contract dispute that had been going on for months between Roku and YouTube TV. Roku and YouTube had been disputing for months to the point where Roku had removed YouTube app (and YouTube TV) from the the Roku store. Earlier this year (January 2021), contract disputes between YouTube TV and Bally Sports caused us to lose our regional sports network (see January 2021 post) and it does not appear that contract will ever be renewed with Bally Sports going a different direction to the streaming market. 

The crazy things is that I already subscribe to Disney+, ESPN+, and many other streaming services, yet, I cannot watch any of the Disney channels live with this recent contract dispute between YouTube TV and Disney. No telling how long this dispute will last. Unlike the Bally Sports contract negotiations, I think this will be a short time where the two sides do not come to terms. With fifteen plus channels gone from YouTube TV which includes all of the sports stations, I see this not taking long to resolve. How long is relative though, as parent company Google has stated many times that they do not intend to raise prices for YouTube TV customers after various price increases the past few years, so I appreciate their holding fast to not pay more for Disney channels if it is going to cause a price increase for us the customers. We could be without the channels for a few weeks but hopefully it does not mean months.

Yes, I have thought about changing providers. We really enjoy the features of YouTube TV and the unlimited DVR capabilities, so I am not interested in leaving at this time. Depending on how long this goes on, I might look at other options for live television, but there is no way I would go back to cable or satellite. The contract disputes are an old foe of television watching. I recall when we were Cox customers for television, they fought contract disputes too where at times service would be lost to channels while they worked through the contracts. It seems that for YouTube TV this is a regular occurrence and it is getting old.

This is the state of my television viewing as of today. Do not be surprised if I am grouchy while this dispute continues, but I am hopeful both parties will resolve this and I will have my sports channels back in my YouTube TV guide.

YouTube TV May Drop Channels — Come On! Every Few Months It is a Battle!

While watching television Monday night, I see a Commerical go across my YouTube TV saying how YouTube TV might take away my channels. The advertisement directed me to https://youneedchannels.com/ to send tweets, or chat with Google, or switch providers, so that I will not lose my channels. This is crazy! Every few months, regardless of provider, we are either on the verge of losing channels or losing channels (see MLB and Sinclair post) about how YouTube TV subscribers lost Royals games, but it is not just sports, it seems we are constantly on the verge of losing what we have available to watch. It is not just YouTube TV, but I see this across the board from other providers and people ranting about how they are going to lose their channels. 

In the recent update, it sounds as though we might lose NBC channels which includes a multitude of other channels including Bravo, Golf Channel, USA, etc., so it could be a huge segment of our channels that might disappear. YouTube TV did tell us through an email that if the channels do disappear, they will reduce our monthly bill by $10 to make up for the number of channels that disappear. 

Updated note from September 30 from YouTube TV is that nothing has changed. We do still have the NBC channels, but negotiations are still in progress, so who knows what will happen.

On Saturday, we received a note that NBC and YouTube TV came to terms and we will keep NBC. Thank goodness! Still, we go through this process and it needs to stop.

YouTube TV App on Short Leash for Roku with Contract Disputes Between Google and Roku #Roku #YouTubeTV #Google

Earlier this week I woke to find an email from Roku regarding YouTube TV possibly being pulled from the Roku services. This lit up a firestorm of complaints via Twitter and Reddit of people complaining. Roku says it is Google (owner of YouTube TV) not acting fairly which is why Google is pulling YouTube TV from the Roku service. Effective Friday, April 30, YouTube TV is no longer on the Roku to add for new customers or if you happen to remove the app it is not longer in the Roku store to add it back to the account. Until Roku and Google come to terms, it appears from the message received from Roku that streaming will continue, but do not remove the app from your Roku device as you will not be able to add it again.

An update for our members: Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to reach an agreement with Roku. We continue to offer Roku the opportunity to renew the YouTube TV deal under the existing reasonable terms.

— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) April 30, 2021

 

I appreciate the fact that Roku is going to keep the YouTube TV as long as Google does not pull it from their services (per the email from Roku), but it is frustrating that no matter the service provider, these disputes occur and have a huge impact on us the customer. I get it that the companies are doing this to make a profit but it seems like they lose sight of why they are in business... that is for us the customer.

Later in the day on Friday, April 30, I received a message from YouTube TV covering their tracks and placing blame back on Roku. Ah, the fun of contract disputes!

If Google does pull the YouTube TV app from the Roku service, Carrie and I will be lucky as we have Apple TV in our family room we will be able to use to watch YouTube TV. The rest of our house, we have three other Roku devices and if Google pulls the app, we would lose the ability to watch YouTube TV in those other rooms. Frustrating! Hopefully it does not come to this but I would not be surprised if this were to occur. 

 Read Message from YouTube to Roku Customers via YouTube Blog.

Are you impacted by Google, Roku, and YouTube TV decisions? Or, is another company contract dispute impacting you and your ability to view your favorite shows, sports, or other entertainment?