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Disney Losing $4 Million a Day, $1.4 BILLION Per Year in Latest Feud

While Disney is playing a bold game, losing the Spectrum deal could cost them enormous amounts of money…but given the Mouse House’s current financial woes, can they afford it?

The Walt Disney Company’s feud with Spectrum TV and its parent company Charter Communications is all anyone can talk about at the moment.  The fight is just one of the many that Disney finds itself embroiled in at the moment and could have severe ramifications for the media industry at large. Last week, Disney withdrew its channels from Spectrum out of the blue (as far as viewers were concerned), reportedly interrupting the middle of a game.

Disney and Spectrum dispute
Spectrum TV, Disney CEO Bob Iger / Credit: Spectrum; Disney

After all this, Disney recently even dangled a carrot in front of Charter Communications’ Spectrum TV subscribers, asking them to come over to Hulu and watch their favorite sports games on Hulu+ Live TV.

The reality is that while the move seems almost underhanded, Disney stands to lose a lot more than they’d like to let us believe if the deal falls through. While most have focused on how the end of the Disney-Spectrum deal could be a “death blow” for the cable provider, Disney isn’t going to sail past unscathed.

According to Cord Cutters News, over 14 million residential customers are without ESPN and other Disney-owned channels. What does this mean for the Mouse House?

demi lovato exclusion disney channel
Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato got their big breaks on the Disney Channel / Credit: Disney

It is reported that Disney gets about $9 a month for ESPN from every cable TV customer. Since Disney just lost 14,071,000 TV residential customers, this leaves over a $126 million hole in ESPN’s budget, at a time when Disney is already trying to cost cut.

As the outlet made clear, “If Disney fails to reach a deal with Spectrum, this could result in over $1.4 billion in lost revenue every year for ESPN…Or about $4 million every day in lost revenue for ESPN.”

Why Did Disney Drop Spectrum?

What came to light after the debacle on the evening of August 31, 2023, was that Disney and Spectrum are currently enmeshed in a dispute over carriage fees. Popular stations, including ABC News, ESPN, and even the Disney Channel, were removed, leaving viewers unhappy with the Walt Disney Company and Spectrum, their service provider.

disney spectrum charter communications
Disney CEO Bob Iger, Spectrum TV / Images Credit: Thomas Hawk, Flickr; Spectrum TV

A full list of the channels dropped from Spectrum includes:

  • ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPNU, ESPN News, SEC Network, ACC Network, Longhorn Network
  • FX, FX Movie Channel, FXX, Freeform, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo
  • Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Baby TV
  • ABC On Demand programming and several local ABC stations, including ABC7 Chicago, ABC7 Los Angeles, ABC7 New York, ABC7 San Francisco, ABC11 Raleigh-Durham, ABC13 Houston, ABC30 Fresno

Stay tuned to Disney Fanatic for the latest Disney news.

Priyanka Kumar

Priyanka is a writer, artist, avid reader, and travel enthusiast based in Chicago. In her free time, she is probably walking by the lake, catching up on the latest releases on TV, or spending inordinate amounts of time rewatching Moana, Encanto, and her Disney Channel life-long favorites Zack and Cody wreak havoc on the Tipton.

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