The dispute between Disney and YouTube TV escalated significantly this week when Disney publicly requested that the streaming service temporarily restore its ABC channel for subscribers ahead of the US Election Day on November 4. Disney-owned networks, including ESPN and ABC, went dark for YouTube TV subscribers last week after the companies failed to reach a new distribution agreement. Despite the ongoing blackout, Disney urged YouTube TV to put “the public interest first,” arguing that subscribers should have access to the election information they rely on while negotiations continue. YouTube TV, however, not only refused the request but countered that its own data showed its subscribers deliberately avoided watching ABC during the last two Election Days.Here’s the full email that YouTube sent to Disney leadershipThanks for your proposal.We agree that the right priority here is to give customers what they want. As you know from the many content disputes you’ve been part of, customers don’t want companies fighting and content blackouts. But unfortunately, your proposal would permit us to return Disney’s ABC stations only for a day and will cause customer confusion among those who may briefly see ABC on YouTube TV only to lose it again shortly after.

There are plenty of other options for customers – election news information is very widely available across other broadcast stations and news networks on YouTube TV, as well as on the main YouTube service, for free. In fact, on the last two U.S. election days, the vast majority of tuned in YouTube TV subscribers chose not to watch ABC.Publicly resorting to the same tactic that Disney relied on in past disputes fails to acknowledge the distinction between YouTube and other distribution platforms. As you know, Disney can continue to livestream news information on the ABC News YouTube page, which has 19.1M subscribers, and its ABC local stations can also do so on their YouTube pages.To truly achieve what is best for our mutual customers, we propose immediately restoring the Disney channels that our customers watch: ABC and the ESPN networks, while we continue to negotiate. Those are the channels that people want.If you agree with our proposal and give us approval, we can get our operational teams together and get these channels live in hours. Let us know how you’d like to proceed.More importantly, let’s get a fair deal done so we can get back to providing our mutual customers with the content they want. Thank you.