Despite Disney and Charter Communications’ refusal to budge in their heated carriage dispute, Deutsche Bank remains hopeful that the two parties will ultimately make concessions in order to reach a “mutually beneficial agreement.”
“We expect Disney to concede its (aggressive) demand for increased carriage minimums and potentially its demand for a longer duration agreement,” analysts Brian Kraft and Ben Soff wrote in a note to clients. “In exchange, we expect Charter to pay Disney’s asking price per subscriber and concede its (unrealistic) demand for Disney’s streaming apps to be included for free to Charter customers subscribing to packages that contain Disney’s linear networks.”