The irony of this being a snippet from a podcast episode that normally would've been behind a paywall.
So from what I read, Disney wants about another $1,50/month/subscriber from Spectrum. Spectrum has about 14.7 million subscribers. This would bring in another $22 million/month to Disney.
In return, Spectrum is wanting either:
-the option for each sub to be able to opt out of having any of the Disney channels, and have a lower monthly rate, or
-for all subs to have ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu thrown in
Disney of course said no to both options, so here we are. I am on Spectrum's side in this situation.
What would everyone do in this situation?
Really, both sides just went way too hard on a shytty opening offer in negotiations. There's absolutely no world where ANY media company with as many channels as Disney, let alone actual Disney, agrees to that deal.
Letting Spectrum split the bundle up will invariably end with the customer getting gouged on the ala carte pricing should they choose to break things up, or most likely, Spectrum moving the ESPNs into whatever their opt-in sports pack is, which would also likely see a price increase at the same time. Spectrum gets to see more of the revenue from each Disney customer, and gets to point the customer in Disney'a direction for them getting fukked.
The other option is asking Disney to sacrifice the value add of the Hulu/Disney +/ESPN+ bundle by just giving it away for pennies on the dollar to Spectrum, which would start the ball rolling on everyone else wanting a similar deal.
Realistically speaking, this is likely more about Hulu being a viable alternative to cable with their live TV service than it actually is about Disney's requested price increase. Essentially, both companies are trying to stick the consumer for more money, they're really just arguing over who gets to draw the short straw and be called the bad guy in this instance.
