Disney, Spectrum End Cable Blackout, Nothing Meaningfully Changes

Last week we discussed how a contract dispute between Charter (Spectrum) and Disney resulted in 15 million Charter customers losing access to more than 20 ABC and ESPN channels they pay for. We also noted how despite a lot of weird claims this standoff would somehow dramatically reshape television, that nothing would actually change and the only real outcome would be higher rates for consumers.

For some reason there were strangely a ton of articles about how this standoff would “change streaming forever” or “change television forever.” Numerous outlets claimed this standoff would be the end of the traditional cable bundle. There’s been an endless flood of these stupid disputes, but for whatever reason this was to be the standoff that would finally somehow fix the broken TV consumption model.

Of course none of that ever happened. Like most of these retransmission disputes the two sides struck a confidential new contract over the weekend nobody gets to see the full details of, and the two companies–who couldn’t shut up just a week ago–suddenly don’t actually want to talk publicly about:

“Disney and Charter didn’t immediately return requests for comment.”

None of the customers who lost access to Disney/ABC content get refunds. Any higher costs Charter winds up paying to carry Disney/ABC content gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher cable TV prices. And while the deal purportedly includes Charter customers getting some discounted access to ESPN and Disney streaming content if they subscribe to specific cable tiers, it’s nothing revelatory.

So where did the press’ get this idea that this deal was going to somehow change television as we know it? Charter executives, mostly. Charter, like most cable companies, spent years trying to downplay cord cutting and deluding themselves into thinking they didn’t have to compete with streaming competitors on price.

But during this retransmission dispute with Disney, Charter spent a lot of time pretending to be a serious disruptor, insisting that if Disney didn’t back off its demands for higher rates, Charter would somehow, magically and single-handedly, transform the cable TV sector:

“The video ecosystem is broken,” Winfrey declared during an investor call last Friday, adding ominously that “this is not a typical carriage dispute.” Winfrey reinforced his conviction that Charter is committed to pursuing a permanent shift away from the traditional cable TV business if a Disney renewal is not reached.

But it was just another typical carriage dispute. They happen pretty much constantly (here’s yet another one between Dish and Hearst that popped up this week). They routinely involve broadcasters demanding significantly more money for the same content, the two sides being unable to agree to a new contract like fucking adults, then taking out their dysfunction on overpaying customers.

Yeah, there’s a major transformation of the video industry happening thanks to streaming (though the streaming sector is trying its hardest to learn absolutely nothing from the sins of the past). But companies like Charter are almost always belatedly reactionary; any idea they’re on the cutting edge of disruption of any kind is wholly illusory. And debates like this are simply greedy people bickering over the arrangement of Titanic deck chairs (usually to the detriment of consumers). They’re not somehow inherently magic.