As football season fast approaches, Fox is reportedly applying maximum pressure to one of the largest pay TV distributors in the country.
According to a report by Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, Fox and YouTube TV are currently at “some sort of carriage impasse” that could threaten a blackout of the Fox-owned networks on the Google-owned platform. Should a carriage agreement fail to be reached, the Fox broadcast network, FS1, FS2, and Big Ten Network would all go dark on YouTube TV just as football season is about to kickoff.
Per a blog post by YouTube, the deadline for an agreement is 5 p.m. ET on August 27. It is common for networks to sign deals that expire right as important programming, like college football and the NFL, begin in order to gain leverage over distributors.
According to recent reports, YouTube TV has approximately 9.4 million subscribers, making it one of the largest pay TV distributors in the country.
This Saturday, Fox is scheduled to air arguably the biggest college football game of opening week, Texas-Ohio State on Big Noon Saturday. The following week, Fox will air a full slate of Sunday afternoon NFL contests.
The company might have slightly more of an appetite to extend a carriage battle such as this now that it has launched its direct-to-consumer streaming service, Fox One, allowing viewers to purchase Fox’s content directly without a pay TV subscription. However, sacrificing nearly 10 million monthly per-subscriber fees by holding the line against Google isn’t exactly in Fox’s best interest, even if it does generate a few more Fox One subscribers.
As usual, these negotiations may go down to the last minute, but it’s likely a resolution will prevail before there are any extended blackouts causing fans to miss important programming.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.