DirecTV rejects Disney plea to lift blackout during ABC presidential debate

DirecTV is rejecting an offer from Disney to provide a feed of ABC News’s coverage of the presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Harris on Tuesday.

The latest back-and-forth comes amid a carrier dispute between the two sides that has seen Disney channels, including ESPN, blacked out for 11 million DirecTV customers nationwide during the start of football season and the finale of the ABC’s popular “Bachelor” series.

“Although we have yet to reach an agreement, we are providing a three-hour feed of ABC News coverage to all impacted DirecTV customers at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight’s debate at this important moment in our history,” Disney said in a statement provided to multiple media outlets. “We remain at the table negotiating with DirecTV and the restoration of our programming to their subscribers is completely within their control.”

DirecTV in a Tuesday statement noted it previously agreed to return ABC to its customers in time for Tuesday’s debate if Disney was also willing to return all its channels across platforms to DirecTV through the end of “Monday Night Football” on Sept. 17.

Disney rejected that offer, the satellite provider said.

“Unfortunately, returning only Disney’s ABC stations from the entire portfolio of channels for a limited 3-hour window will cause customer confusion among those who would briefly see the debate only to lose the channel again shortly after,” the company said in a statement.

Tuesday night’s debate is being simulcast by a number of other cable and network news channels, also available on DirecTV, including Fox, NBC, CNN and C-SPAN.

About an hour before its debate coverage was slated to begin, ABC News posted on social media urging DirecTV customers to turn to Disney’s various streaming services instead of watching on another DirecTV-carried network simulcasting the event.

“We did everything possible to make the ABC News presidential debate widely available to the American public — including giving DirecTV the ability to serve you with access to our debate coverage,” the network said. “They rejected that offer. If you are impacted by DirecTV’s refusal to restore temporary access to ABC, the debate is available on Hulu, Disney+ and free to stream on ABC News Live and over the air.”

—Updated at 6:50 p.m.