About 10 million YouTube TV subscribers could lose access to Fox News and Fox Corp. channels that broadcast sports in a fee dispute that comes just days before the start of college football.
The Google-owned television service notified customers that Fox-owned channels, including Fox Business and local stations such as KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, may be dropped from their program line-ups as soon as Wednesday afternoon if the two sides fail to reach a new distribution pact.
YouTube TV viewers would be without “The Five” and other Fox News programs. Sports fans could miss out on Friday night’s Auburn-Baylor football game and Saturday’s high-profile contest between Texas and Ohio State, along with three regional Major League Baseball games.
A prolonged blackout could interrupt the start of Fox’s NFL season that begins on Sept. 7.
“Fox is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive,” YouTube said late Monday in a blog post. “Our priority is to reach a deal that reflects the value of their content and is fair for both sides without passing on additional costs to our subscribers.”
The dust-up comes as YouTube TV has become one of the most formidable television providers.
Earlier this year, Nielsen ranked YouTube, including its video service, as the largest television distributor in the U.S. by share of viewership. YouTube’s popular bundle — it also offers the NFL Sunday Ticket package of out-of-market games — has dramatically cut into the business of legacy pay-TV providers, including Charter Spectrum, DirecTV and Dish Networks.
“While Fox remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,” Fox said in a statement, adding the dispute could force its channels to go dark “unless Google engages in a meaningful way soon.”
Last year, YouTube generated $54.2 billion in revenue, second only to the Walt Disney Co., according to the MoffettNathanson research firm. The analysts estimated that fast-growing YouTube TV would reach 10 million subscribers this year. That slightly trails Charter, which operates the Spectrum service, and Comcast. YouTube TV has eclipsed the once powerhouse satellite TV service providers.
Disputes between programmers and pay-TV providers have become increasingly common in recent years amid a weakening of television economics. The high cost of sports rights has become a major rub for pay-TV distributors who have been asked to pay higher fees to mitigate the loss of subscribers.
Last year, DirecTV customers lost access to Walt Disney Co. channels, including ESPN, for nearly two weeks.
The battle was costly. DirecTV acknowledged that thousands of subscribers fled — many to YouTube TV — during the blackout. Viewers who wanted to watch the U.S. Open tennis tournament, college football, “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” were upset by the outage.
In 2023, a separate dispute led to Disney channels going dark on Spectrum.
YouTube said Monday that it was “working diligently with the team at Fox to reach an agreement.”
Should the channels go dark, the company will provide customers with a $10 credit. YouTube said customers could also sign up for Rupert Murdoch’s television company’s new streaming service, Fox One, which costs $20 a month.