Charter and Disney’s heated carriage dispute reached a resolution just in time for Monday Night Football.
It could have gotten ugly if fans missed the Buffalo Bills taking on the New York Jets on ABC and ESPN, with Charter CEO Chris Winfrey saying he was prepared to move on if Disney wouldn’t play ball. But this is merely the first quarter in an increasingly rough game that will play out in the months and years to come, as media companies and their cable and satellite contributors grapple with the slow unwinding of a once-lucrative business.
The deal the companies struck would help “stabilize the linear video ecosystem and provide a glide path that gets us to the new direct to consumer environment,” Charter chief financial officer Jessica Fischer told an investor conference hosted by Bank of America Wednesday.