Photo Credit: Kin Li
Disney is losing approximately $30 million a week from its networks like ESPN and ABC being pulled off YouTube TV.
According to Morgan Stanley equity analysts Benjamin Swinburne and Thomas Yeh, Disney is losing around $4.3 million each day from its networks being pulled from YouTube TV. In their financial forecast for Disney’s year-end quarter, the analysts said they are “layering in 14 days of impact from the ongoing YouTube TV blackout, which we estimate is a $60M revenue headwind.”
Today (November 11) marks the 12th day of the Disney blackout on YouTube TV. Morgan Stanley analysts wrote they expect the dispute to be resolved later this week, but estimated that each week its networks remain dark on YouTube TV lowers Disney’s adjusted earnings per share by two cents.
On Thursday, Disney is expected to report earnings for the fourth quarter of its 2025 fiscal year. Analysts expect the company to report an average of $22.78 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $1.02.
Meanwhile, on the consumer side, YouTube TV customers have already missed two weeks of Monday Night Football on ESPN and ABC, plus two Saturdays of college football and other sports, as well as ABC’s primetime shows, “Good Morning America,” and other news programs.
As a result of the blackout, numerous subscribers have dropped YouTube TV over the loss of Disney networks like ABC and ESPN. While that number is as yet unknown, a survey conducted last week found that 24% of YouTube TV subscribers said they’d already cancelled or intend to cancel the service over the Disney blackout.
Over the weekend, YouTube TV alerted subscribers about the option to (manually) apply a one-time $20 credit to their account over the Disney dispute, in an effort to curb cancellations.
Disney’s networks shuttered on YouTube TV on the night of Thursday, October 30, after the two companies were unable to strike a deal before the expiration of their previous contract. The issue at hand is price; YouTube owner Google claims Disney is asking for an “unprecedented fee hike,” while Disney says Google is “refusing to pay fair rates.”
The dispute started on the heels of Irving Azoff’s scathing remarks about YouTube during a keynote session at TheWrap’s TheGrill 2025 conference. The music mogul called the Google-owned company a “bully” and doubled down on his previous assertion that YouTube does not pay artists “their fair share.”
