ESPN, Other Channels Return To DirecTV With New Disney Deal

DirecTV has announced that it had reached a deal with Walt Disney Co. to restore ESPN and ABC-owned stations to its service, following a nearly two-week dispute that blacked out those networks for millions of viewers across the U.S., Michael Liedtke reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The end of the impasse came just in time for sports fans to watch ESPN’s slate of college football games on DirecTV. I Photo: Mike Mozart Flickr

The end of the impasse came just in time for sports fans to watch ESPN’s slate of college football games on DirecTV.

It also ensures that ABC’s telecast of the Emmy Awards on Sunday night will be available in major markets where viewers subscribe to DirecTV’s pay service. ABC had been unavailable since Sept. 1 on DirecTV in several markets where the station is owned by Disney.

These include locations in the San Francisco Bay Area; Fresno, California; New York; Chicago; Philadelphia; Houston; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

DirecTV’s 11 million subscribers abruptly lost access to ESPN, the ABC-owned stations, and other Disney-owned channels such as FX and National Geographic during the Labor Day weekend, in a dispute over carriage fees and programming flexibility.

Some viewers were watching the fourth round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament when ESPN suddenly went dark, while others were preparing to watch a college football showdown between LSU and Southern California.

The impasse also kept the NFL’s opening game of Monday Night Football off DirecTV’s service.