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New Disney Backlash Strikes Company, Enraged Customers Demand Refunds

in The Walt Disney Company

Posted on by Nathan Kamal
Donald Duck is furious

Credit: Disney

The Walt Disney Company is facing yet another huge backlash from paying customers and they are sounding off online.

In the last year, Disney has weathered backlash from the company’s various lawsuits with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, its potentially shady political dealings in Anaheim, accusations of sexualizing minors, gouging Disney Park guests, and the content of pretty much every movie, TV show, and remake that it produces.

Spectrum Charter logo
Credit: Charter Communications

The latest controversy involves millions of cable subscribers around the United States abruptly losing access to channels like ABC, FX, Disney Junior, National Geographic, and ESPN after the House of Mouse failed to secure a contract with Spectrum cable, one of the biggest providers in the country.

Related: Disney Isn’t Losing ESPN, Says CEO Bob Iger

As a result, all Disney-owned channels were suddenly blacked out for 15 million Spectrum cable customers, all of whom are still paying for services.

As you might expect, people are furious.

Right now, things seem evenly split between subscribers who are furious at Spectrum for continuing to charge them for cable packages that don’t have Disney channels, those who blame Disney for alleged greed and unwillingness to negotiate with the cable company, and those who are pretty much angry at everyone for all the ESPN games they are missing.

Unsurprisingly, many of these customers are demanding that either Disney or Spectrum give them discounts or refunds for basically passing the costs of their corporate conflict onto consumers.

The Disney response to the backlash so far has been to issue a statement saying, “We’ve been in ongoing negotiations with Charter Communications for some time and have not yet agreed to a new market-based agreement. As a result, their Spectrum TV subscribers no longer have access to our unrivaled portfolio of live sporting events and news coverage plus kids, family and general entertainment programming.”

That does not really help anyone who is paying for channels that they are not receiving, nor does Disney’s other attempt to candy-coat the situation by basically telling cable subscribers that they can just start directly paying for Disney streaming services like Hulu and Disney+.

ESPN Logo
Credit: Disney

Reportedly, the sticking point of negotiations between Disney and Spectrum cable is the latter company demanding that it have more freedom to offer packages that are not bundled with ESPN and have more options for customers.

Related: ESPN Personality Calls Out Disney Layoffs “I Can’t Explain Bob Iger’s Thinking.”

On the other side, Disney makes a whole lot of money from every cable subscriber with ESPN in their channels, so the House of Mouse isn’t budging there either, even if it is literally costing them millions of dollars every single day that it remains in blackout.

There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight for this particular Disney issue, so hopefully, it has better plans for the backlash than asking people to sign up for Hulu.

Who is more at fault here, Disney or Spectrum? Sound off in the comments!

 

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