Walt Disney and Charter Communications have come to an agreement to end an 11-day long channel blackout that has kept nearly 15 million Spectrum cable subscribers without Monday Night NFL football, U.S. Open tennis, Good Morning America, and Dancing With the Stars.
Investors responded positively to the headlines. Disney stock was up 1.6% in Monday morning trading, while Charter jumped 2.1%. The S&P 500 was trading about 0.3% higher. Charter had proposed a new structure to Disney after the companies’ prior deal expired on Aug. 31. The cable provider wants greater flexibility to offer “skinnier” cable bundles with fewer channels to its Spectrum customers, likely at a lower cost. And it asked Disney to package ad-supported versions of its streaming services—Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and a future, larger ESPN direct-to-consumer service—with Spectrum cable-TV subscriptions at no additional cost.