Hulu, one of the leading streaming platforms in the United States, recently dropped Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ABC stations from its live TV service.
The move comes as a result of a dispute between the Walt Disney Group which owns Hulu, and the ABC TV network of Sinclair Broadcast Group over carriage fees. As of March 4, 2023, viewers in certain markets were unable to access channels like ABC 7 WABC-TV in New York and ABC 7 KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Although Hulu and Sinclair have not yet commented, it has been verified that the channels have been taken down.
Although the live feeds are no longer available, ABC on-demand content is still available to Hulu Plus Live users. At the end of 2022, there were 4.5 million users in Hulu Plus Live, which costs $70 per month. Sinclair owns 27 ABC affiliates, ranging in size from Kirksville, Missouri, to Washington, D.C.
Despite neither making an official announcement, Hulu went public and tweeted the information.
Sinclair owns a number of local ABC affiliates across the country and as of March 8, Hulu no longer has the rights to distribute those channels (https://t.co/7pc7PlOh6b). If you have further questions, please let us know!
— Hulu Support (@hulu_support) March 9, 2023
To further add, in response to customer complaints, Hulu Support tweeted that they were “currently working to restore access to the affected channels as quickly as possible.”
This disagreement is the most recent example of how arguments about fees for broadcasting traditional TV channels have now become a problem for streaming services. Unlike traditional TV providers where they negotiate directly with local channels, streaming services like Hulu, Sling, FuboTV and YouTube TV negotiate with the networks who have their own agreements with local channels. These services are now competing with traditional TV providers to attract viewers.
This is not the first time that Hulu has been involved in a dispute with a content provider. In the past, the streaming service has faced similar disagreements with ViacomCBS and NBC Universal, among others.
Sinclair, on the other hand, has had disputes with other streaming services like YouTube TV and FuboTV. These conflicts often arise when broadcasters demand higher carriage fees for their content, while streaming platforms seek to keep costs down for their subscribers.
In a related disagreement with FuboTV, a number of big station groups in the country, including Nexstar, Sinclair, Hearst Tegna, Gray, and Cox, pulled their CBS affiliates last month. The largest station company in the country, Nexstar, is still a holdout as of this week, despite the fact that several of the stations have now been added back to the FuboTV schedule.
Are you interested in learning more about how the fees associated with broadcasting traditional TV channels have emerged as a challenge for streaming services?
Tom Carter recently opened up in this regard, saying, “We are in a dispute with CBS right now over the Fubo situation. But keep in mind that virtual MVPDs contribute less than 10% of our distribution revenue and our distribution revenue is about half of our total revenue and Fubo is the smallest vMVPD we deal with. So we’re talking about a relatively minor amount of money, quite honestly, to both us and CBS. So it’s kind of easy to pick Fubo as a fight to have.”
The removal of Sinclair-owned ABC stations from Hulu Plus Live depicts the ongoing battles between content providers and streaming platforms. As the streaming industry continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how these conflicts will be resolved.
