Entertainment
What to know about the Disney, ESPN blackout on DirecTV
![What to know about the Disney, ESPN blackout on DirecTV What to know about the Disney, ESPN blackout on DirecTV](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3d7f782/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1701x893+0+123/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F75%2F18%2F3bf8efb94fb1a2770369f4f3697e%2F1473245-sp-0901-usc-lsu-rcg-7840.jpg)
Walt Disney Co. on Sunday pulled ESPN and other channels from DirecTV minutes before the kick off of a high-profile USC football game and during the U.S. Open tennis tournament — infuriating sports fans who found themselves in the middle of a contentious contract dispute.
More than 10 million DirecTV and U-Verse video customers were swept up in the feud when DirecTV lost its rights to carry Disney programming — including Disney-owned ABC television stations.
The two companies had been negotiating at DirecTV’s El Segundo headquarters for weeks, but failed to agree on a new licensing deal by the Sept. 1 deadline.
The blackout is the latest sign of strain facing traditional television companies as customers shift to streaming.
“Consumers are going to blame somebody but, really, it took both of these companies to get into this position,” Emarketer senior analyst Ross Benes said recently.
Here’s what to know about the dispute:
Why is this happening?
Pay-TV providers, including DirecTV, have absorbed stiff increases in the costs of licensing programming as their customer base has eroded because of cord-cutting. TV distributors are struggling to make money on their video channel businesses and fear that big rate increases will only drive away more customers.
The cost of carrying broadcast channels (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and sports channels, including ESPN, has been skyrocketing as the programmers look to pass along the increases they have agreed to pay sports leagues and conferences. Increasingly, the shrinking pool of traditional pay-TV subscribers has been asked to shoulder these increases.
DirecTV asked Disney for flexibility to offer smaller, genre-themed packages. Disney has long required pay-TV companies to carry its cable channels, including ESPN, in most of its customers’ homes. ESPN is the most expensive basic cable channel, costing distributors nearly $10 per month per subscriber home.
That has led to one of the thorniest issues in the current dispute: Disney’s requirements for “minimum penetration” for its channels, including ESPN. Disney requires that ESPN must be delivered to about 82% of DirecTV’s subscribers.
Over the years, the minimum penetration practice has enabled Disney to collect huge fees, including from subscribers who don’t watch much sports. Pay-TV companies must pay penalties if they don’t meet the minimum threshold.
DirecTV argues that that since fewer than 40% of its customers regularly watch Disney sports content, it is unfair to burden those subscribers with the high costs of sports programming. Disney counters that it invests heavily in high-quality programming and has offered its channels, including ESPN, to DirecTV at market rates.
DirecTV is trying to relax those penetration rates, and the fees that it must pay when it doesn’t meet the threshold.
DirecTV satellite dishes in Culver City.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The satellite provider also notes that only 10% of its customer base regularly tunes in to kids programming — but more than 80% of its subscribers are paying for those channels.
In addition, DirecTV and other distributors also have been chafing over efforts by Disney and other entertainment giants to build their own streaming services, which compete with their longtime partners, the pay-TV companies. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp. this year teamed up to build a sports streaming service, Venu, as an alternative to companies such as DirecTV. The effort was challenged in court, and a federal judge in New York granted a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks Venu’s launch.
How long will this dispute last?
That’s unclear.
A year ago, a similar dispute between Disney and Charter Communications, which operates the Spectrum service, lasted 12 days.
After that contentious struggle, Charter dropped some smaller Disney-owned channels, including Freeform, and gained the right to offer Disney streaming services, including Disney+, as part of its bundle. However, the outage proved costly to Charter, which lost more subscribers than it anticipated.
The blackout ended just as ESPN’s first “Monday Night Football” game of the season was getting underway.
Typically, a dispute ends when both sides feel the economic pain.
“There’s always a lot at stake,” Benes said. “But if [DirecTV doesn’t] have ESPN channels for the next three months, that will lead to even more cord-cutting. It could be another nail in the coffin.”
![FILE - New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2978fe3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3256x2171+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6d%2F2b%2Fdd13f5ee4909b87c173554962858%2Fjets-rodgers-return-19664.jpg)
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is expected to return on Sept. 9 for a “Monday Night Football” game after tearing his left Achilles tendon in last year’s New York Jets’ season opener.
(Adam Hunger / Associated Press)
What programs might be affected?
Customers who live in cities served by a Disney-owned ABC television station, including KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles, will see an interruption in some of their favorite programming, including “Good Morning America,” “Jeopardy” and local newscasts. Disney owns eight ABC stations, including in San Francisco, Fresno, New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and Raleigh-Durham.
For now, much of the pain is being felt by sports fans. College football fans are still miffed that they missed the USC – Louisiana State University clash on Sunday, which saw the 23rd-ranked Trojans execute a thrilling last-minute victory over the No. 13-ranked Tigers.
ESPN has rights to the U.S. Open tennis tournament, which is in the latter rounds with the men’s and women’s quarter-finals and semifinals. The championships are this weekend.
College football is also huge on ABC and ESPN.
Monday marks the kickoff of “Monday Night Football” on ESPN and ABC, with a prominent pairing of the New York Jets against the San Francisco 49ers, two markets served by ABC-owned stations. The game is slated to feature the return of Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who suffered a season-ending injury in last year’s “MNF” opener.
![David Muir sitting at the ABC News anchor desk.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/af11777/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1800x1200+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8d%2F04%2Fdf5d65864988ba85ffe082148362%2Fworld-news-tonight-with-david-muir-1.jpg)
“World News Tonight with David Muir” is among ABC’s programs.
(Heidi Gutman / ABC News)
ABC is also hosting the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump on Sept. 10. However, other networks are carrying ABC’s feed for the debate.
The Disney-owned network also will broadcast the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards show Sept. 15, so millions of customers won’t be able to watch the TV fan fest — hosted by father-and-son comedy duo Eugene and Dan Levy — if the dispute drags on for two weeks.
Is there a work-around?
Viewers can access ABC signals through a digital over-the-air antenna. But that won’t help viewers of Disney’s cable channels, ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel, FX or National Geographic.
Competing services offer the Disney cable channels, including YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney), FuboTV and traditional cable and satellite providers, including Charter Spectrum, Cox Communications, Comcast and Dish Networks.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, sort of. DirecTV is offering customers $20 credits to compensate for the disruption. Customers must apply for the credit on an upcoming bill.
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Movie Reviews
Queer: Daniel Craig shines in Luca Guadagnino’s steamy drama
![Queer: Daniel Craig shines in Luca Guadagnino’s steamy drama Queer: Daniel Craig shines in Luca Guadagnino’s steamy drama](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/og_image_scmp_review/public/d8/images/canvas/2024/09/04/85e3813f-0288-4ff7-98b0-3ebe7ce51c3d_91300972.jpg?itok=audBgDzg&v=1725416551)
3/5 stars
American author William Burroughs’ lurid, experimental novels are notoriously difficult to adapt and not exactly conducive to great cinema. David Cronenberg managed it with 1991’s Naked Lunch. Now, Luca Guadagnino takes on Queer, which was written in the early 1950s but was not published until 1985.
Premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Queer is a faithful, authentic dive into Burroughs’ universe, albeit one that struggles to maintain interest over a protracted 135-minute runtime.
Daniel Craig successfully demolishes his James Bond image as William Lee, a middle-aged homosexual drug addict living in Mexico City, drinking himself into oblivion. That is before he starts injecting drugs and going in search of yage, the plant better known now as ayahuasca, which he believes has telepathic properties.
Early on, Lee has an air of bonhomie about him as he seeks out casual sex with men, but his slide towards addiction becomes Guadagnino’s focus.
Movie Reviews
Wolfs movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert
![Wolfs movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert Wolfs movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Wolfs-2024-1.jpg)
There are few droll joys in cinema more satisfying than watching and hearing George Clooney and Brad Pitt exchange knowing looks and wry, occasionally pointed banter. They’ve appeared in several films together, but the camaraderie stuff mainly happens in the “Ocean’s” caper films directed by Steven Soderbergh. (In the Coen Brothers’ 2008 “Burn After Reading,” to name one of their other on-screen collaborations, the relationship between their characters does not, spoiler alert, survive their non-introduction.) There are no more such films on anyone’s docket, but “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts, does, despite its nameless main characters having a largely antagonistic kind of kinship, work hard to give its stars some of that old Danny and Rusty feeling.
Watts deliberately, and almost ceaselessly, plays on these performers’ status as the Last White Male Movie Stars, and even more so as the Last White Aging Male Movie Stars. (Their characters don’t move as quickly as they did when they wore younger men’s clothes, and late in the film they take to sharing an Advil bottle.) Pitt and Clooney play cleaners for hire—not the dry kind but the criminal kind. When an ambitious politico played by Amy Ryan has a luxury hotel assignation that ends with a probable corpse in her hotel room, she phones a contact listed on her device only as a pair of brackets. And then along comes George, black turtleneck sweatered, with a nice leather coat, some latex gloves, and other tools of his trade. But he is followed in short order by a similarly dressed Brad, summoned by the owners of the hotel. And the two soon start low-key bickering about who’s going to do the lion’s share of the cleaning while poor Ryan has to blubber with a bloody blouse for a while.
Despite a spectacular supporting cast that also includes the great Richard Kind, and some voice work by Frances McDormand, “Wolfs” is a duet in cool for its two principals, at least up until the problem they were arguing over the cleaning of proves more animated than had been previously believed. Austin Abrams plays a character known only as “Kid,” and he’s simultaneously terrified and awed by the men who are in charge of his fate. The proceedings are further enlivened by four bricks of heroin-or-something-like-it (some of the more amusing banter has the Wolfs arguing about the possibility of a “magic drug”) and some murderous Albanians who are looking for those bricks. The various plot twists and attempted escapes yield a bravura multi-borough New York chase scene that could have been trimmed by a couple of minutes but definitely represents a coup for the picture’s location coordinator David Fox and his crew, and kudos to them. And while there’s a fair amount of grisly violence here (something Watts is no stranger to; the fact that he directed the trashy, amoral horror film “Clown” gave me some misgivings about this enterprise), it’s more cartoonish than anything else.
This is neither a trifle nor a truly Major Motion Picture; it’s an entertainment maybe in the sense that Graham Greene used the term. But one needn’t be so hifalutin about the matter. Fact is, it’s a smile to hear Clooney utter again the familiar line “What’s the play here?” and Pitt protest, a little later on, “I don’t work that way.” And deep-cut appreciators will appreciate the mini-homage to “Ocean’s” producer Jerry Weintraub in the form of a late-introduced character who’s a Sinatra super fan.
This review was filed from the premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It opens on September 20th.
Entertainment
Adele confirms she's taking a break after Las Vegas gigs: 'I want to live my life'
Adele says she’s making good on a promise to take a break from music after she completes her residency in Las Vegas.
The “Hello” and “Rolling in the Deep” singer confirmed during her Saturday show in Germany — her last in a 10-show run abroad — that she plans to “rest” when she wraps her three-year gig in Sin City this November.
“I’m not the most comfortable performer, I know that, but I am very f— good at it. And I have really enjoyed performing for nearly three years now, which is the longest I’ve ever done and probably the longest I will ever do,” the 15-time Grammy Award winner said onstage in Munich, according to fan footage posted on TikTok.
Adele has 10 shows left in her “Weekends With Adele” residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. The shows will span five weekends this fall after she had to postpone them in February due to illness.
“After that, I will not see you for an incredibly long time and I will hold you dear in my heart for that whole length of my break,” she said, adding that she will “fantasize” about her time onstage. “It has been amazing. I just need a rest.”
“I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it now,” the 36-year-old said through tears. “I want to live my life that I’ve been building and I will miss you terribly.”
On Tuesday, Adele took Instagram to reflect on her “bespoke” gig in Munich, which launched Aug. 2.
“Wow! Wow! Wow! Munich you were incredible! What a phenomenal experience. I am truly touched by the genuine outpouring of love and good will I felt from every single person who came to every single show,” she wrote, captioning a highlight reel from the shows. She also thanked the fans who attended and her team for making it happen.
“There truly is no feeling like standing in front of people you’ve never met, belting out a bunch of songs that changed your life that in ways somehow changed theirs too. It’s truly remarkable and an extraordinary story to be able to tell. I’ve been sobbing watching this beautiful video! Danke Munchen!,” she wrote.
In July, the superstar told German broadcaster ZDF that her “tank is quite empty” and that she doesn’t have plans for new music “at all.”
“I want a big break after all this and I think I want to do other creative things just for a little while,” the hitmaker said. “You know, I don’t even sing at home at all. How strange is that?”
Likewise, before her Las Vegas residency began, the Oscar-winning “Skyfall” singer said she planned to take a break from music and perhaps pursue a degree in English literature or an acting career. However, during a January show, she said she might be open to touring again after completing a follow-up to her award-winning 2021 album “30.” But, as she told a fan in the audience, she wasn’t in any rush to do either of those things yet.
Instead of touring to promote “30,” she took up residence at the Colosseum. She was initially set to launch her residency in January 2022, but unexpectedly shut it down a day before it was meant to open. She blamed the COVID-19 pandemic and issues with the supply chain at the time, then explained later that the postponement was because her “artistic needs” were not being met. She said the show had “no soul in it” and that it “lacked intimacy” inside the 4,000-person theater.
The “Easy on Me” singer ultimately launched “Weekends With Adele” in November 2022 and extended the run twice.
Earlier this month, the British balladeer confirmed during another Munich show that she and sports agent Rich Paul were engaged after repeatedly referring to Paul as her fiancé — and sometimes her “husband” — for months. (The two went public with their romance in 2021.) The singer, who shares 11-year-old son Angelo with ex-husband Simon Konecki, has also been vocal about wanting to expand their blended family.
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