Media conglomerate Walt Disney Company extended a deal for its pay-television sports broadcast subsidiary ESPN and other channels to be carried by media company Comcast’s cable-television service in an agreement that includes significant out-of-home viewing rights for the first time.
The 10-year deal allows subscribers to Comcast’s Xfinity TV cable-television service to watch a total of 70 Disney networks and services live or on-demand through smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles as well as television. Financial details have not been disclosed, but Derek Baine, an analyst at research company SNL Kagan, told Business Week that Disney may receive up to $25bn (€19.5bn) for ESPN programming alone over the course of the deal, which runs from 2012 to 2022.
The agreement covers Disney’s ABC network and the ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPNews, ESPN Classic, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN 3D, ESPN GamePlan, ESPN FullCourt and ESPN3 services and channels as well as other services that do not show sport.
ESPN executive chairman George Bodenheimer called the deal “unprecedented” and said it reinforced “the value of the multichannel subscription.” SNL Kagan told the New York Times that ESPN’s networks currently generate about $6.50 per subscriber per month – more than any other channel on US cable and satellite television. Research company Baine estimated that ESPN’s carriage fees would rise by between six and eight per cent annually over the course of the deal.