YouTube TV announces $20 credit, ESPN channels unlikely to return ahead of Monday Night Football

An ongoing dispute between YouTube TV and Disney is showing few signs of resolution ahead of Monday Night Football. And as a result YouTube TV is preparing to attempt to make things right for its subscribers.

In an e-mail to subscribers on Sunday afternoon, YouTube TV informed its customers that it will offer a $20 bill credit as a result of the company’s ongoing carriage dispute with Disney. The dispute has caused customers to miss out on ESPN’s offerings since the dispute began, with the ESPN-affiliated channels blacked out on YouTube TV.

The bill credit had previously been reported as a potential remedy for YouTube TV subscribers, but details had been sparse. Now they’re more clear.

“We’ve been working in good faith to negotiate a deal with Disney that pays them fairly for their content and returns their programming to YouTube TV,” the e-mail to subscribers read. “We know it’s been disappointing to lose Disney content, and we want you to know we deeply appreciate your patience. In light of the disruption, we’re offering our subscribers a $20 credit.

“Over the next few days, you will receive a follow-up email with instructions on how to redeem your $20 credit for YouTube TV. Once redeemed, this will be applied to your next bill.”

The ongoing dispute between YouTube TV and Disney carried over into Week 11 of college football. News broke last week that ESPN, ABC and other Disney networks were going dark on Google’s YouTube TV.

The decision to go dark came after months of negotiations and is the latest in a series of carriage disputes with major networks and Google’s streaming service. The standoff between Disney and YouTube TV has now extended past one week, and has surprised many that a resolution was not reached before this week’s Monday Night Football game.

With Disney going dark on YouTube TV, more than 20 channels were removed. On Friday, YouTube TV called out Disney for leaking documents to the press and negotiating in public through paid talent.

“Once again, Disney is resorting to their old tactics like leaking documents to the press, negotiating in public through their paid talent and misrepresenting the facts, including from the deals they’ve offered and taking credit for our product proposals,” YouTube TV said in a statement. “Our team stands ready to make a fair agreement in line with their deals with other distributors and we encourage Disney to come to the table and do what’s best for our mutual customers.”

Earlier on Friday, Disney wrote a memo to employees stating it was headed to another “sports-packed weekend without a deal in place.”

“We realize this has been a challenging week, with everyone asking the same question as millions of YouTube TV subscribers during the busiest time of the year in sports: When will ESPN and ABC be back on the service?” the memo stated. “We wish we could give you that answer today.”

The two sides remain distanced from reaching an agreement before Week 11. The root of the dispute is a streaming contract that has to be renewed. The top concern is the size of the per-subscriber fee that Google will pay Disney for access to its networks.

On3’s Pete Nakos also contributed to this report.