All Hulu Plus Live TV members were able to stream Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony despite a blackout of Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned ABC affiliates on the streaming service.
A national feed of the Oscars on ABC – owned by The Walt Disney Co. – was made available by the Disney-controlled virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD), sources have revealed.
The biggest award night of the year, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel this time, is one of the most watched non-sports telecasts in most years. The Oscars transmission was the only time the ABC live feed was accessible on Hulu and it went dark once more after the broadcast.
Although vMVPDs are regulated differently from traditional cable and satellite MVPDs from a legal and regulatory point of view, the feed might violate Sinclair’s affiliation agreement with ABC.
According to insiders, Sinclair is negotiating with Hulu to get its Tennis Channel available. Executives from both ABC and Sinclair declined to make an on-the-record comment on the development.
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Earlier this month, Hulu dropped Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ABC stations from its live TV service. The move was 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 the live feeds are no longer available, ABC on-demand content is still available to Hulu Plus Live users.
Hulu users from Sinclair-owned areas who subscribe to the platform for access to ABC shows have also complained about the disruption on social media.
One Twitter user said:
Hey Hulu, please settle things with Sinclair and bring back ABC now. Recently joined Hulu but will go back to previous plan which I liked lot better anyway.
— Laura (@lulunova) March 9, 2023
Last year, negotiations with vMVPDs took an awkward turn when Sinclair withdrew its signals from Hulu and CBS affiliates opted out of an agreement established by Paramount Global, the owner of CBS, and FuboTV.
The situation with CBS got worse this year when the network gave FuboTV a national stream of its shows, replacing local news and other station programming with CBS content.
ABC had not made network programs available to Hulu Plus Live TV users until Sunday night. The day after they air on ABC, episodes from the channel’s shows are available on Hulu.
The CBS Affiliate Board announced late last week that it approved of a new deal between Paramount and CBS that would put affiliate signals on FuboTV, Hulu Plus Live TV, YouTube TV, and Paramount Plus.
“If a crisis between national nets and local stations was emerging, it now appears averted,” Wells Fargo media analyst Steven Cahall pointed out. “The CBS affiliate board has adopted a new deal for vMVPD carriage. Nexstar has also announced a carriage deal with YouTube TV showing larger broadcasters can go direct. Both deals indicate vMVPDs are not indifferent to local content.”
Cahall noted that Sinclair’s ABC affiliates “remain off of Hulu Live TV, and it looks like ABC offered its national feed to these subs last night during the Oscars.”
While the dispute between ABC and Hulu works itself out, here’s how streamers outside USA can access Hulu.
