Q&A: Why does YouTube TV keep clashing with major networks?

November 3, 2025
An illustration showing two identical televisions: one features the YouTube TV logo, while the other features the Disney logo.

(Illustration by John DiJulio, University Communications)

Any University of Virginia football fan who’s also a YouTube TV subscriber was likely out of luck Saturday when the Cavaliers played the University of California, Berkeley, on ESPN2.

A contract dispute between parent media companies – Google and Disney – caused Disney-owned channels, including ABC and ESPN’s networks, to be pulled from YouTube TV, beginning late Thursday.

Portrait of Darden School of Business assistant professor Anthony Palomba.

Darden School of Business assistant professor Anthony Palomba is an expert in audience analysis, media innovation and firm competition, and entertainment science. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

That left roughly 10 million YouTube TV subscribers blacked out from watching several high-profile college football games Saturday, including 15th-ranked UVA’s 31-21 win over Cal.

As of Monday afternoon, there’s been no resolution. This marks a fifth carriage spat for YouTube TV in 2025 after earlier clashes with Paramount, Fox, NBCUniversal and TelevisaUnivision.

To get a sense of why this keeps happening, we caught up with Anthony Palomba, an assistant professor of business administration at UVA’s Darden School of Business and an expert in the media and entertainment industry.

Q. Why is YouTube TV constantly in disputes?

A. YouTube TV’s persistent involvement in carriage disputes reflects broader structural tensions in the streaming television industry, rather than unique combativeness on the platform’s part.

Streaming platforms, like YouTube TV, that replicate traditional cable packages operate under mounting pressure from all sides. Content costs continue to rise as more platforms and outlets compete for a limited pool of in-demand talent.

In this volatile environment, YouTube TV must navigate high-stakes contract negotiations with major media companies like Disney, NBCUniversal and Fox Corporation. This means that it’s often reaching last-minute extensions or deadline-driven deals. These recurring standoffs reflect a deeper tension between aggregators striving to contain costs and content owners seeking to preserve or expand their revenue and control. The frequency of such disputes is not an anomaly, but a symptom of the distribution model’s underlying instability.

Q. Who are the winners and losers of these disputes?

A. Consumers theoretically benefit from intensified competition, as companies should be driven toward producing the best product possible. Of course, in practice, they more often experience higher prices and temporary channel losses.

The losers are more clearly defined: subscribers face service disruptions, frustration and escalating costs; distributors see their value proposition undermined, potentially triggering subscriber churn and negative publicity; advertisers suffer from reduced reach and disrupted campaign planning when programming goes dark.

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I’m also not convinced that Gen Z and Gen A, who have grown up with the ability to view content when they want, will have the patience for this. As it stands, they’re far more inclined to view sports highlights than games, so this issue may evolve along these consumer behaviors.

Q. What about cable companies? 

A. Traditional cable companies occupy an ambiguous position. While they might gain short-term advantage when streaming competitors face disputes, they confront identical cost pressures and cord-cutting challenges. Any competitive benefit proves transient and fails to address their fundamental business model vulnerabilities.

Q. Broadly, what’s the long-term impact of these conflicts?

A. The current landscape represents a transitional era for live television distribution. Traditional cable bundles face existential pressure, streaming platforms continue fragmenting the market, rights costs accelerate upward, and viewer habits shift unpredictably. The carriage-dispute model, rooted in cable television’s legacy structures, is being imperfectly adapted to streaming environments while retaining the same fundamental negotiation pressures and incentive misalignments.

A persistent paradox underlies these disputes: networks demand higher fees from distributors, but those fees almost invariably pass through to consumers via subscription price increases. The negotiation theatrics essentially determine how and when costs transfer to end users, rather than whether they will.

For YouTube TV, repeated public disputes risk eroding subscriber trust. Viewers paying $80-plus monthly may reasonably question a service where channels periodically disappear and prices perpetually climb.

For networks like Disney, pulling channels carries significant risks, including viewership decline, advertising revenue loss and subscriber dissatisfaction. Yet if management believes the long-term value of higher fees or tighter distribution control outweighs short-term disruption, they’ll press their advantage.

Q. What role does the attraction of live sports play in this dynamic? 

A. Sports rights amplify every aspect of these dynamics. Live sports remain one of the few genuinely “must-watch live” categories, granting sports networks and their distributors disproportionate leverage. This explains why disputes involving ESPN or regional sports networks generate intensity and urgency.

For subscribers navigating this environment, vigilance is essential. Regularly monitoring channel lineups, anticipating potential blackouts and continuously assessing whether subscription value aligns with cost, particularly given abundant alternatives, represents a prudent strategy in an era of persistent distribution instability.

Media Contacts

McGregor McCance

Darden School of Business Executive Editor

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