Television content creators have had coverage/payment disputes with cable providers for a few years now. My first memory of such a standoff was connected to the Big Ten Network demanding more money for its content than cable operators wanted to pay. Currently, the nation’s second largest cable operator, Charter, has reached an impasse with Disney. The former wants a slimmer option without the mega-profit maker ESPN bc so many households do not watch sports. That means subscribing sports enthusiasts could miss MNF, some college football, and other sports programming due to the “lockout.” Disney is thinking of an ESPN+ channel in addition to Disney+*.
Meanwhile, closer to my Chicago home, WGN has been off the air for nearly two months here in the Windy City due to a negotiation impasse between Comcast and whoever owns WGN. I watched WGN news while I ate breakfast bc their approach is far more whimsical than the traffic, weather, overnight shooting story, which would be followed by weather and traffic, and then repeat. Can you imagine youngsters such as the EPB admin (and my wife) who grew up watching Bozo, Ray Rainer, and Garfield Goose got locked out of WGN as a viewer?
No BOZO??? There would have been a kiddie revolt never seen by parents. Jim Morrison sang about “blood in the streets of Chicago.”
*The market for Paramount+, Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, ad nauseum has already saturated the market.
From the WGN website:
The story of the slogan: How WGN became ‘Chicago’s Very Own’
WGN’s Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGN-TV
