Late yesterday (October 2), Sling TV subscribers got their lost ESPN and other Disney-owned channels back. sling (Opens in a new tab) He declared that the 48-hour nightmare was over – temporarily at least – as the two sides reached a “handshake agreement”.
This is according to a statement from Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution obtained by him Limit (Opens in a new tab). “As a result, we are pleased to temporarily restore our portfolio of networks while both parties work to finalize a new deal,” the statement continued. This, of course, indicates that it may go wrong again – although that would be a surprise.
The unexpected surprise is how this whole story began early Saturday (October 1), when Sling’s comments on the topic included a note that “We’re sorry this sounds surprising. We’re also surprised. We thought we were on the right track for a new deal until… Disney walked away from the talks late Friday night (22/09/).”
If that handshake turns out to be a confirmed and final contract, Sling will likely hold its place at the top of our list of the best alternative to cable TV, and in our list of best streaming services as well. These disagreements are somewhat normal, unfortunately, as Disney and YouTube TV quarreled in December 2021, resulting in the loss of 48 hours of those channels on YouTube TV. However, the loss of these channels came as no surprise, with YouTube TV warning that this could happen for a week.
Sling, on its website, did not say anything about the temporary nature of this deal. that it Updated web page (Opens in a new tab) For news regarding its loss of Disney-owned channels, it reads “All of your Disney and ESPN channels have been restored! We sincerely apologize for your programming interruption. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”
This means that the following channels are now available again on Sling TV: ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3, ESPN OnDemand, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, Disney Channel, Disney Jr, Disney XD, ACC Network, ACC Network Extra, Longhorn Network, SEC Network, SEC +, Freeform, FX, FXM, FXX , Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo, ABC News Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live, BabyTV, BabyTV Arabic, BabyTV French, BabyTV Latino, BabyTV Mandarin, BabyTV, Polish and BabyTV Portuguese.
Analysis: How did this go wrong, and how Sling can do good
As noted above, YouTube TV handled the Disney kerfuffle even better in 2021, so that audiences were less likely to be surprised. The weekend loss of channels is annoying either way, and it’s good to see that the Sling outage didn’t last longer than the YouTube TV outage.
Angry customers on Twitter highlighted the lack of any warning. user Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab) He reacted to Sling’s initial ad angrily, saying “Are you kidding me, Sling? Why did we just hear about this, 3 a.m.? We’ve upgraded our subscription to get ESPN and sports channels. And we’ve got a bunch of people for the Georgia game tomorrow! I guess that’s not going to happen.”
Sling has not announced any kind of compensation for the outage, which is one way things can be improved with customers. In contrast, YouTube TV offered lower prices when this happened, stating “We will reduce our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99 while this content remains off our platform” — but since that only happened for two days, it’s Difficult to know how much people benefit.
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