service

YouTube TV customers are bracing for another frustrating weekend.

For the last week, YouTube TV’s 10 million subscribers have been denied access to ESPN, ABC and other Walt Disney Co. channels in a dispute that has swelled into one of the largest TV blackouts in a decade. Instead of turning on “College GameDay,” “Monday Night Football” or “Dancing With the Stars,” customers have been greeted with a grim message: “Disney channels are unavailable.”

The standoff began Oct. 30 when the two behemoths hit an impasse in their negotiations over a new distribution contract covering Disney’s channels and ABC stations.

Google, which owns YouTube, has rebuffed Disney’s demands for fee increases for ESPN, ABC and other channels. The Burbank entertainment giant has been seeking a revenue boost to support its content production and streaming ambitions, and help pay for ESPN’s gargantuan sports rights deals.

Talks are ongoing, but the two sides remain apart on major issues — prolonging the stalemate.

“Everyone is kind of sick of these big-time companies trying to get the best of one another,” said Nick Newton, 30, who lives near San Francisco and subscribes to YouTube TV. “The people who are suffering are the middle-class and lower-class people that just love sports … because it’s our escape from the real world.”

Both companies declined to comment for this article.

The skirmish is just the latest between YouTube and programming companies. Since August, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp., Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Spanish-language broadcaster TelevisaUnivision have all complained that YouTube TV was trying to use its market muscle to squeeze them for concessions.

Here’s a look at what’s driving the escalating tensions:

Google’s growing clout in television

The struggle between Disney and YouTube reflects television’s fast-shifting dynamics.

Disney has long entered carriage negotiations with tremendous leverage, in large part because it owns ESPN, which is a must-have channel for legions of sports fans.

Programmers, including Disney, structured their distribution contracts to expire near a pivotal programming event, such as a new season of NFL football. The timing motivated both sides to quickly reach a deal rather than risk alienating customers.

But for Google’s parent, Alphabet, YouTube TV is just a sliver of their business. The tech company generated $350 billion in revenue last year, the vast majority coming from Google search and advertising. That gives YouTube a longer leash to hold out for contract terms it finds acceptable.

“This dispute is not that painful for Google,” said analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners, noting that YouTube TV could probably withstand “two weekends without college football, and two weeks without ‘Monday Night Football’ — as long as their consumers stay with them.”

Disney, however, depends on TV advertising and pay-TV distribution fees. The week-long blackout has already dampened TV ratings, which means less revenue for the company.

Consumers like YouTube TV

For decades, throngs of consumers loathed their cable company — a sentiment that Disney and other programmers were able to use in their favor in past battles. Customer defections prompted several pay-TV companies to find a compromise to restore the darkened TV channels and stanch the subscriber bleeding.

But YouTube is banking on a more loyal user base, including millions of customers who switched to the service from higher-priced legacy providers.

“I’ll stick this thing out with YouTube TV,” Newton said, adding that he hoped the dispute didn’t drag on for weeks.

“This is one of the problems facing Disney,” Greenfield said. “It’s been a noticeable change in tone from past carriage fee battles. If customer losses stay at a minimum, then Disney is going to be in a tough place.”

It boils down to power and money

YouTube TV is the fastest-growing television service in the U.S. Analysts expect that, within a couple of years, YouTube TV will have more pay-TV customers than industry leaders Spectrum and Comcast.

In the current negotiations, Google has asked Disney to agree to lower its rates when YouTube TV surpasses Comcast’s and Spectrum’s subscriber counts. Disney maintains that YouTube already pays preferred rates, in recognition of its competitive standing, and that Google is trying to drive down the value of Disney’s networks.

“YouTube TV and its owner, Google … want to use their power and extraordinary resources to eliminate competition and devalue the very content that helped them build their service,” top Disney executives wrote last Friday in an email to their staff.

People close to YouTube TV reject the characterization, saying the service has been a valuable partner by providing a strong service that brings Disney billions of dollars a year in distribution revenue.

“The bottom line is that our channels are extremely valuable, and we can only continue to program them with the sports and entertainment viewers love most if we stand our ground,” the Disney executives wrote in last week’s email. “We are asking nothing more of YouTube TV than what we have gotten from every other distributor — fair rates for our channels.”

Higher sports rights fees

A major reason Disney is asking for higher fees is because it’s grappling with a huge escalation in sports costs.

Disney is on the hook to pay $2.6 billion a year to the NBA, another $2.7 billion annually to the NFL, and $325 million a year for the rights to stream World Wrestling Entertainment. Such sports rights contracts have nearly doubled in the last decade, leading to the strain on TV broadcasters.

In addition, deep-pocketed streaming services, including Amazon, Apple and Netflix, have jumped into sports broadcasting, driving up the cost for the legacy broadcasters.

The crowded field also strains the wallets of sports fans, and appears to be adding to the fatigue over the YouTube TV-Disney fight.

Newton wrote in a recent Twitter post that he was spending $400 a month for his various internet, phone and TV services, including Disney+ and NFL Sunday Ticket, which is distributed by YouTube TV.

“I’m already on all the major subscriptions to watch football these days,” Newton, a third-generation San Francisco 49ers fan, said. “You need Netflix. You need Peacock, you need Amazon Prime and the list goes on and on. I’m at the point where I’m not paying for anything else.”

The cuts in Hollywood just keep coming, following a sadly familiar script.

Last week it was Paramount, which laid off about 1,000 workers in the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media took over the storied media and entertainment company.

The cuts affected a wide swath of the company, from CBS and CBS News to Comedy Central, MTV and the historic Melrose Avenue film studio, my colleague Meg James and I reported. Another 1,000 layoffs are expected in the coming weeks.

But Paramount isn’t the only one in the media business that’s shedding jobs and payrolls.

Earlier, cable giant Charter Communications said it would lay off 1,200 people nationwide, as the company faces increased competition for its broadband internet packages. NBC News, too, laid off 150 employees last month amid declining TV ratings and lessening ad revenue.

Other recent media-adjacent layoffs included 100 cuts to Disneyland Resort’s Anaheim-based workforce and the massive 14,000 worker reduction at Amazon, including at the company’s gaming and film and TV studios.

And that doesn’t even include widespread job losses that happened earlier this year at companies such as Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Six Flags Entertainment Corp.

It all adds up to a grim picture for Hollywood’s workers, who have faced a near endless marathon of economic hurdles for the last five years.

First it was the pandemic, followed by the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, cutbacks in spending after studios splurged on streaming productions, and the outflow of production to the U.K. and other countries with lower costs than California.

Then, in January, nature struck a blow, with the fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades destroying many industry workers’ homes.

Topping it off, Saturday marked the first day that millions of low-income Americans lost federal food assistance due to the government shutdown that began Oct. 1. That has affected some 5.5 million Californians and probably some who work in the entertainment industry.

“It’s been one crisis after another, without enough time in between,” said Keith McNutt, western regional executive director of the Entertainment Community Fund, which provides social services for arts and entertainment professionals. “People are concerned and very worried and really trying very hard to figure out where they go from here.”

McNutt reports that the nonprofit group has already heard from some people who were recently laid off, and has experienced a sharp increase in demand for its services, particularly from those in the film and TV industry. The fund offers healthcare and financial counseling and operates a career center. It also provides emergency grants for those who qualify.

Clients include not only low-income people who are always hit hardest in downturns, but also veteran entertainment industry professionals who’ve worked in the business for 20 to 30 years.

Those who were lucky enough to have savings saw those wiped out by the pandemic, and then were unable to replenish their rainy-day funds after the strikes and industry contraction, said David Rambo, chair of the fund’s western council.

“It has been snowballing very slowly for about five years,” Rambo said.

Many in the industry are hopeful that California’s newly expanded film and television tax credit program will bring some production — and jobs — back to the Golden State. That’s what backers campaigned on when they lobbied Sacramento legislators to bolster the program. Dozens of TV shows and films have received credits so far under the revamped program, but it’ll take some time to see the results in filming data and employment numbers.

And that doesn’t help the workers who were just laid off last month. For those folks, McNutt suggests calling the fund’s health insurance team to make sure they understand their options and also to spend some time with career counselors to understand how Hollywood skills can be transferable to other employers, whether that’s on a short- or long-term basis. Most importantly, don’t isolate yourself.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “Nobody’s alone in this situation that the industry is finding itself in right now, and so reach out to your friends, reach out to your colleagues. If you’re not comfortable with that, reach out to the Entertainment Community Fund.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ wild 11-inning win on Saturday over the Toronto Blue Jays notched nearly 26 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game since 2017, according to Nielsen data.

The 2017 Game 7 win by the Houston Astros over the Dodgers had an audience of 28.3 million.

The Dodgers are now the first Major League Baseball team to win back-to-back championships in 25 years. On Monday, thousands of Dodgers faithful turned out for the team’s victory parade through downtown L.A.

Finally …

You’ve no doubt heard of L.A.’s famous star tours. But what about a tour of a historic cemetery?

My colleague, Cerys Davies, wrote about local historian and guide Shmuel Gonzales — or as he calls himself, “Barrio Boychik” — and his walking tour of Boyle Heights’ Evergreen Cemetery.

The cemetery is the final resting place for many of L.A.’s early movers and shakers, including the Lankershims and the Hollenbecks, and it’s also a prime example of L.A.’s multicultural history.

Handwritten notes. Free product samples. Email responses to questions. And in some cases (shout-out to Surfing Cowboys in Malibu), an old-school phone call to discuss a gift item.

This is the kind of service that sets local businesses apart, offering personalized experiences you won’t find on Amazon.

From independent artists working at home to brands manufacturing in downtown Los Angeles, these businesses offer a diverse range of products and services that reflect the unique character of our city, which has been affected by wildfires, ICE raids and a struggling economy.

The gifts I’ve included here are all from Los Angeles-based businesses. They carry a personal touch — a connection to the people and the city. Some are handmade while others are manufactured, but all of them are a part of our city’s unique fabric.

Let’s keep it going and support small businesses in Los Angeles this holiday season. Our connection to one another is our strength.

If you make a purchase using some of our links, the L.A. Times may be compensated. Prices and availability of items and experiences in the Gift Guide and on latimes.com are subject to change.

Oct. 23 (UPI) — SpaceX cut Starlink Internet service to thousands of its devices providing access to compounds in Myanmar linked to human trafficking and monetary scams worldwide.

The company said late Tuesday that it terminated more than 2,500 Starlink devices Chinese crime syndicates were using to contact and scam people globally.

“SpaceX continually works to identify violations of our Acceptable Use Policy and applicable law because — as with nearly all consumer electronics and services — the same technology that can provide immense benefits has a risk of misuse,” Lauren Dreyer, Starlink’s vice president of business operations, said in a post on X.

“In Myanmar, for example, SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers,'” she wrote.

The scam centers, which operated largely along the border between Myanmar and Thailand, lure people in with the promise of good jobs before often being taken captive and being forced to defraud people through fake investments and pretend romantic schemes, according to reports.

Myanmar’s military, which in 2021 staged a coup that has kept the country mired in a civil war, announced this week that it shut down a scam operation called KK Park, seizing 30 sets of Starlink Terminals and arresting more than 2,000 people.

The military earlier this year launched an operation to go after the scam centers after other nations, specifically Thailand and China, exerted pressure to ease the situation that has seen people from both countries trafficked and forced to work in the scam parks.

Although the military has moved to shut down some operations, reports suggest that many compounds in Myanmar remain active, with tens of thousands of employees and some protected by militia groups that are aligned with Myanmar’s military.

Small screen giant Netflix has once again turned to the big screen, this time with the release of its latest buzzy film, “Frankenstein.”

Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, the film opened last weekend with a limited release in 10 theaters in Los Angeles, New York and a few other cities, and will expand to more sites for a total theatrical run of three weeks. The film stars Oscar Isaac as the titular egomaniacal scientist and Jacob Elordi as the Creature (who, contrary to popular belief, is not named Frankenstein — you can thank my English major for that tidbit).

The film is getting some awards attention, particularly for the performance of the prosthetics-and-makeup-laden Elordi, and notched a solid 86% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. As of Sunday afternoon, Del Toro posted that the film had sold out at least 57 screenings. “Frankenstein” will debut on the streamer on Nov. 7.

Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is just the latest in a long line of adaptations of the classic 1818 novel by Mary Shelley. From the first silent film short in 1910 to Boris Karloff’s famed turn as the monster in 1931 and the Kenneth Branagh-directed movie in 1994 that starred Robert De Niro as the creature (Branagh played Frankenstein and Helena Bonham Carter was Elizabeth Lavenza), the classic horror story has proved ripe for filmmakers’ commentary on humanity, science and nature.

In fact, “Frankenstein” has been a lifelong passion project for Del Toro, who has made an award-winning career out of analyzing and depicting monsters, from 2006’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” to 2017’s “The Shape of Water.”

For Netflix, it’s a reminder of why film remains an important, if unlikely, part of the streamer’s strategy.

It’s no secret that Netflix has built its reputation — and its streaming prowess — on the strength of its series, from “Orange Is the New Black” to “Stranger Things” and “Bridgerton.” After all, popular episodic shows keep viewers on the platform, rack up hours of engagement and help draw new subscribers to the service.

The Los Gatos, Calif., company’s embrace of movie theaters may seem surprising given its longstanding testy relationship with movie theater exhibitors and their distribution strategy.

In fact, Netflix has also long said its main goal is to offer subscribers first-run movies on its platform, directly undermining the traditional 90-day “window” between a film’s release in theaters and when it appears in the home.

Earlier this year, Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos poured salt on the wound when he called the theatrical business “outdated,” at a time when many chains are struggling to fill seats to pre-pandemic levels.

Yet, theaters are still important to Netflix, which releases about 30 films annually in cinemas.

One reason: the allure of Oscar glory.

For the last few years, Netflix has submitted dozens of movies for awards-qualifying runs.

It’s typical for those films to be in cinemas for about two to three weeks before showing up on the platform. (Sometimes, those theatrical showings are for marketing purposes, like the recent “KPop Demon Hunters” singalong screenings.)

Netflix has won numerous Academy Awards over the years, ranging from animated feature (Del Toro’s “Pinocchio” in 2023), supporting actress (Laura Dern for “Marriage Story” in 2020 and Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez” in 2025) and director (Alfonso Cuarón in 2019 for “Roma” and Jane Campion in 2022 for “The Power of the Dog”).

Best picture, however, has continued to elude the company.

Theatrical releases also help the streamer to attract filmmakers and build relations with key talent. For instance, Netflix’s upcoming “Narnia” film from Greta Gerwig will get a two-week Imax run next year. Netflix previously ran Del Toro’s well-received horror anthology series “Cabinet of Curiosities.”

And while serial narratives may reign supreme, to maintain subscribers, you need other kinds of content to keep it fresh. That’s where movies (and live events) come into play.

As consumers decide which streaming services they can’t live without, a platform that has a little bit of everything has an advantage.

“Having a good mix of movies and serial content is really important,” says Alicia Reese, senior vice president of equity research in media and entertainment at Wedbush Securities. “A lot of people use this as their one and only subscription.”

In other fronts, is the fight over OpenAI’s new Sora 2 dying down? Maybe not, but there are signs of easing tensions.

On Monday, United Talent Agency, SAG-AFTRA, Creative Artists Agency, Assn. of Talent Agents, actor Bryan Cranston and OpenAI released a joint statement noting that Cranston’s voice and likeness was able to be generated “in some outputs” without consent or compensation when the tool was launched two weeks ago in a limited release.

“While from the start it was OpenAI’s policy to require opt-in for the use of voice and likeness, OpenAI expressed regret for these unintentional generations,” the statement said. “OpenAI has strengthened guardrails around replication of voice and likeness when individuals do not opt-in.”

Cranston, who brought the issue to SAG-AFTRA’s attention, said he was “grateful” to OpenAI for improving its policies and “hope that they and all of the companies involved in this work, respect our personal and professional right to manage replication of our voice and likeness.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

NBC News sent termination notices to 150 staffers last week, as the network struggles with declining TV ratings and ad revenue. Layoffs have been prevalent throughout the media landscape this year, but have been felt especially hard at broadcast news outlets, as audiences increasingly migrate to streaming platforms and cut the cord.

In addition to these issues, my colleague Stephen Battaglio reported that the NBC News layoffs were also attributed to the spin-off of cable networks MSNBC and CNBC. NBC News now no longer shares resources with those outlets, which will become part of a new company called Versant.

Affected employees were encouraged to apply for 140 open positions throughout the news group.

Finally …

I had to do it. With the Dodgers returning to the World Series, my colleague Jack Harris looks at the team’s season this year and how they fought through multiple injuries on the roster to eventually turn the ship around.

There you are, sitting in traffic in your car, listening to Taylor Swift on Spotify because it’s easier than subjecting yourself to a new, more challenging artist. An ad pops up in your stream. It’s serious stuff, evidenced by the dystopian tone of the narrator: “Join the mission to protect America,” the serious man’s voice commands, “with bonuses up to $50,000 and generous benefits. Apply now … and fulfill your mission.”

It’s an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment ad, part of the Trump administration’s investment of $30 billion to add more than 10,000 deportation officers to its ranks by the end of the year. You would have been spared the outrage if only you had paid for Spotify’s ad-free tier of service, but there’s no way the audio streamer is getting your money now. You’ll be switching to, say, Apple Music. Maybe Tidal?

The experience of being subjected to recruitment ads for a domestic military force, assembled by a power-hungry president, has generated intense backlash that’s culminated this week in calls for boycotts of streaming services and platforms that have featured ICE spots. They include Pandora, ESPN, YouTube, Hulu and Fubo TV. Multiple HBO Max subscribers bemoaned on X that they were subjected to ICE recruitment videos while watching All Elite Wrestling: “Time to be force-fed ICE commercials against my will for two hours again #WWENXT,” @YKWrestling wrote.

Recruitment ads — Uncle Sam’s “I Want You” poster comes to mind — are an American staple, especially in times of war. But the current recruitment effort is aimed at sending forces into American cities, predicated on exaggerated claims that U.S. metro areas are under siege and in peril due to dangerous illegal immigrants, leftist protesters and out-of-control crime rates. The data, however, does not support those claims. The American Immigration Council found that from 1980 to 2022, while the immigrant share of the U.S. population more than doubled (from 6.2% to 13.9%), the total crime rate declined by over 60%.

Yet there’s a far scarier doomscape on the horizon if ICE’s recruitment efforts are successful: a mercenary army loyal only to Trump, weaponized to keep him on the throne. If that sounds more dystopian than the aforementioned Spotify ad, consider that the administration has spent more than $6.5 million over the past month on a slew of 30-second commercials aimed at luring in police officers.

The ads aired on TVs in more than a dozen cities including Chicago, Seattle and Atlanta and opened with images of each specific metro area’s skyline. Then came the commanding narration: “Attention, Miami law enforcement!” It’s followed by the same messaging that is used in ICE ads across the country: “You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe. But in sanctuary cities you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free — Join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst. Drug traffickers. Gang members. Predators.”

But are the ads working? It’s hard to say since transparency isn’t a hallmark of the MAGA White House. For what it’s worth, a Sept. 16 press release from the DHS claimed that it had received more than 150,000 applications in response to its campaign and had extended 18,000 tentative job offers.

As for the power of consumer-led boycotts, there’s hope. More than 1.7 million Disney, Hulu and ESPN subscriptions were reportedly canceled between Sept. 17 and Sept. 23 during Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary suspension by ABC (Disney is ABC’s parent company). The network pulled the show after the host’s comments related to Charlie Kirk’s assassination angered MAGA supporters and the Trump-appointed FCC chair appeared to threaten the network. But after a week with a significant increase in cancellations — a 436% jump compared to a normal week — Kimmel was back on the air.

As of today, Spotify appears unmoved by the pressure to pull those intrusive ICE ads. “This advertisement is part of a broad campaign the US government is running across television, streaming, and online channels,” a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement this week. “The content does not violate our advertising policies. However, users can mark any ad with a thumbs up or thumbs down to help manage their ads preferences.”

Thumbs down. Frowny emoji. Cue the dystopian narrator for a counter ad: “Join the mission to protect America: Cancel Spotify.”

CNN is taking another shot at launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service that will make much of the channel’s news programming available without a pay TV subscription.

The unit of Warner Bros. Discovery announced Thursday it will launch an All Access subscription tier for CNN.com available for $6.99 a month starting Oct. 28. The service will provide what the company describes as “a selection” of live programming on CNN and CNN International.

The service will also have exclusive on-demand programming and a library of titles from CNN Films and CNN Original Series.

The All Access subscription will be be offered at $69.99 annually, but will carry an introductory price of $41.99 for the first year for customers signing up by Jan. 5.

The announcement comes two years after Mark Thompson took over as chief executive of the network with a mandate to guide the channel into a digital post-cable future.

CNN launched a direct-to-consumer service in 2022 called CNN+, made up of original programming featuring its current talent line-up and new additions including Audie Cornish, Chris Wallace and Kasie Hunt. But the service was shut down nine days after launch following WBD’s takeover of the network, as new management was focused on reducing debt.

CNN has seen profits decline significantly over the last five years as cord-cutting has driven down revenues received from cable and satellite companies carrying the channel.

The cable channel also saw a significant decline in ratings after WBD took over ownership of the network and executives pushed for the network to appeal more to conservative viewers.

Thompson has made few changes to the CNN program line-up as his team has focused on its digital properties. Thompson and Alex MacCallum, executive vice president of digital products and services, were both at the New York Times when the company transformed into a successful digital subscription-based news business.

In a statement, MacCallum said the All Access launch is “an essential step in CNN’s evolution as we work to give audiences the complete CNN experience in a format that reflects how audiences engage with the news today.”

CNN introduced a paywall on its website last year, giving users unfettered access to articles and video on the site for $3.99 a month. Response to the preliminary phase was encouraging, according to people inside the network who were not authorized to comment publicly.

Cable subscribers will also get the new streaming service for free.

Fox News is currently the only major cable news channel available without a pay TV subscription. The channel is offered on Fox One, the recently launched streaming service that also offers local Fox broadcast affiliates for $19.99 a month.

YouTube users reported problems streaming content and accessing the app for about 60 minutes before the company resolved the issue.

YouTube says it has resolved problems with its website and app after hundreds of thousands of users worldwide self-reported issues with its streaming services.

“This issue has been fixed – you should now be able to play videos on YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV!” YouTube wrote on X on Thursday morning in Asia.

YouTube did not disclose why users reported problems streaming videos for about 60 minutes on Thursday morning, or the global extent of the problem.

Disruptions began just before 7am in East Asia (23:00 GMT, Wednesday) for YouTube, YouTube Music and YouTube TV, according to Downdetector, a website that aggregates website disruptions in real time.

Users from Asia to Europe and North America soon reported problems streaming, accessing the website, and using the apps of YouTube and its affiliates, though error reports were most heavily concentrated in the US, according to Downdetector’s user-generated error map.

Major disruptions were also reported in Japan, Brazil and the United Kingdom, although the extent of the problem is unknown because Downdetector data is based on user-submitted reports and social media.

The number of error reports peaked at 393,038 reports in the US at 7:57am (23:57 GMT) before falling off sharply, according to Downdetector data.

Downdetector reported a smaller number of disruptions for YouTube Music and YouTube TV, which both peaked at fewer than 5,000 error reports in the US over the same period of time.

Pay TV providers have a new message for consumers: Your ex wants you back.

While the media industry watches the once massive number of subscribers to cable and satellite services diminish like a slow-melting iceberg as audiences move to streaming, the companies are aggressively developing ways to slow the trend and perhaps win some business back.

Spectrum and DirecTV have both recently held fancy press events in New York to tout their efforts to offer a more consumer-friendly experience and services that add value for the still substantial number of customers they serve. Giving consumers more choice and flexibility is their new mantra.

The latest evidence of this emerged last week when Spectrum introduced an app store, where customers can get subscriptions to the streaming platforms such as Disney+, Hulu, AMC+ and ESPN, and access them alongside the broadcast and cable channels that still carry the bulk of high-profile sports and live events.

The Stamford, Conn.-based company’s 31 million subscribers can now get ad-supported streaming apps as part of their TV packages, which would otherwise cost an additional $125 a month. Ad-free versions are also offered at a discounted price.

Over the last year, El Segundo-based DirecTV rolled out smaller packages of channels aimed at consumers who no longer want a big monthly bill for the panoply of networks that have accumulated in the pay TV bundle over the years. The satellite TV service now offers smaller “genre packages” of channels and streaming apps that cater to a particular interest available at a lower price — designed for news junkies, sports fans, kids and Spanish-language speakers. There is one for entertainment channels as well.

There are early indications consumers are responding. In the second quarter of this year, Spectrum reported a loss of 80,000 cable customers due to cord-cutting, a significant decline from the same period in 2024, when 408,000 homes ditched cable.

DirecTV does not disclose its subscriber numbers, but Vincent Torres, the company’s chief marketing officer, said the smaller and more bespoke channel packages are drawing younger consumers who have bypassed pay TV subscriptions up to now.

For Spectrum, the deal to get the Disney apps came out of an ugly carriage dispute in August 2023 that for 12 days left customers without programming, including the U.S. Open tennis tournament and the start of the college football season. The standoff followed comments by Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger that taking the company’s program services directly to the consumer and bypassing its traditional pay TV partners was inevitable.

Spectrum CEO Chris Winfrey suggested his company could get out of the video distribution business and stick to selling its far more profitable broadband internet services.

The dispute was a sharp example of the pressure on cable providers that have been asked to pay more to carry the channels from Disney and other media conglomerates as they feel the pressure of rising programming costs and sports rights fees. The costs are passed along to customers who are paying more for content that is available on streaming services. Spectrum insisted on a deal that made Disney’s streaming apps available to its customers at no additional cost.

The tensions subsided and, in June, Spectrum reopened and extended its contract with Disney before it was up — a rarity in the contentious arena of carriage negotiations that lead to channel blackouts.

DirecTV’s slimmer cable packages came after a similarly bruising dispute with Disney last September, with customers losing access to the channels for 13 days.

But there was a new spirit of unity on stage at Spectrum headquarters, where ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro, the architect of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer strategy, was among the guest speakers.

Although Pitaro has long hammered away at how ESPN needs to be accessible to sports fans wherever they are, he touted the value of the cable subscription and described the relationship with Spectrum as “the best it has ever been.”

Spectrum customers already get ESPN channels through their cable subscription, but adding the direct-to-consumer app allows them access to its features such as enhanced real-time stats during live games and a personalized “SportsCenter” that uses AI to create a custom highlight show for users.

Spectrum has enlisted the networks it carries to make promotional spots touting its new services. Speaking at the Spectrum event, Winfrey acknowledged it will take some time for consumers to get used to the idea of getting more from their cable provider at no additional cost.

“Our No. 1 issue is — and this may shock you — but customers don’t trust the cable company,” Winfrey said. “Maybe with good reason. For how many decades did the cable industry go out and say HBO is included for free? And it was for three months and then, $10 would show up on your bill. We’ve conditioned people to think it’s a free trial period.”

Torres notes that more consumers are experiencing what he calls “content rage” as the prices of individual streaming services such as Peacock and Disney+ continue to rise. As programming gets sliced and diced for the growing number of services, consumers are finding that more than one subscription is necessary, especially for fans of the NFL or NBA, which have spread their games over several services.

“You see a growing frustration that ‘I can never find what I want to find when I want to watch it,” Torres said. “The fragmentation of the content is creating customer dissatisfaction. They can’t always find what they’re looking for.”

Along with its slimmer channel packages, DirectTV recently introduced a new internet-connected device called Gemini that combines streaming apps with traditional TV channels.

Pay TV companies are also offering voice-controlled remotes to help consumers find what they want to watch, whether on streaming or a traditional channel.

Executives say more enhanced viewing experiences are coming to keep the pay TV customer connected.

Starting this season, Spectrum’s SportsNet channel will be offering its Los Angeles customers several Lakers games in an immersive video format that can be streamed through an Apple Vision Pro device. The technology will give users a courtside view of the game at Crypto.com Arena. All that’s missing is a seat next to Jack Nicholson, but as AI advances, who knows?

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

Disney’s sci-fi sequel “Tron: Ares” got off to a weak start, opening with just $33.5 million in North American theaters.

The results were well below 2010’s “Tron: Legacy,” which opened to $44 million. The production budget for “Tron: Ares” was reportedly $180 million.

Still, Disney does have two potential box office hits later this year with “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and animated sequel “Zootopia 2.”

Finally …

Stacy Perman’s deeply reported piece on fake collectible movie props is a must read. Bonus points for an appearance by notorious movie and TV executive Jim Aubrey, known as “The Smiling Cobra.”

It’s not my habit to preface my columns with “trigger alerts,” so this is a first:

If talking about circumcision makes you cringe, feel free to move along.

If, on the other hand, you wish to understand what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was talking about during a White House meeting Oct. 9 when he tried to connect circumcision with autism, follow along with me.

The offhand reference to circumcision’s possible role in autism by Kennedy, Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, is part and parcel of Kennedy’s documented assault on science-based medicine.

His campaign encompasses attacks on COVID-19 vaccines, which have been shown over the years to have saved millions of people from death, hospitalization or long-term disability; his firing members of professional advisory boards at his agency and replacing them with anti-vaccine activists; his promotion of unproven “cures” for vaccine-preventable diseases; and his inaction in the face of a nationwide surge in cases of measles, a disease that was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000.

Let’s pause for a few words about the broader consequences of the erosion of our public health infrastructure. It not only exposes Americans to more disease and more serious disease, but has profound economic effects.

That’s true worldwide, but especially in the U.S., which spends much more per capita on healthcare than other developed countries, for lower results. Undermining the existing system for partisan ends won’t make the picture look any lovelier.

“The U.S. health disadvantage threatens the country’s global competitiveness and national security, as well as the hopes and prospects of future generations,” according to a 2021 paper from the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that Kennedy now leads.

“U.S. employers depend on a healthy workforce to maximize productivity and minimize healthcare costs,” the paper stated. “Population health also affects the consumer market, whereby the demand for nonessential products and services suffers when families are struggling with illnesses and much of their disposable income is required for medical expenses.”

The chaos imposed on our public health system under the Trump administration only intensifies the damage.

On Friday, hundreds of employees at Kennedy’s agency, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abruptly received layoff notices. Some were hastily informed that their firings were erroneous, but the experience rattled the CDC, an agency tasked with overseeing the national response to seasonal respiratory illnesses at a time when those illnesses typically spike.

“The damage is beyond repair,” Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, a unit of the National Institutes of Health, over conflicts with Kennedy, told CNN. “Crippling CDC, even as a ploy to create political pressure to end the government shutdown, means America is even less prepared for outbreaks and infectious disease security threats.”

That brings us back to Kennedy’s preoccupation with autism. He has claimed that the autism rate is on the rise due to “environmental toxins” such as childhood vaccinations and the use of Tylenol — or acetaminophen, its generic name — by mothers during pregnancy.

As I’ve reported, however, the roots of the increase in reported autism rates in recent decades are well understood: They have much to do with a broader definition of autism, which is widely described today as “autism spectrum disorder,” and with improved access to screening and diagnostic services by formerly overlooked groups such as Blacks, Hispanics and other nonwhite cohorts.

Kennedy’s comment about circumcision came during a White House Cabinet meeting. At first, he and Trump traded misconceptions they had previously aired about Tylenol use by pregnant women — Trump asserting that “obviously,” the rise in autism rates is “artificially induced” and adding, “I would say don’t take Tylenol if you’re pregnant, and … when the baby is born don’t give it Tylenol.”

That advice dismayed physicians, who say that fevers during pregnancy are a greater risk for the unborn and that acetaminophen is safer than alternative fever-reducing medicines.

Kennedy then injected circumcision into the discussion. “There’s two studies that show children who were circumcised early have double the rate of autism,” he said. “It’s highly likely because they were given Tylenol.”

Unsurprisingly, Kennedy’s remark got extensive play in the news media, prompting him to try walking it back via a tweet on X. Rather than accept responsibility for his confusing words, he responded with Bondi-esque truculence, writing: “As usual, the mainstream media attacks me for something I didn’t say in order to distract from the truth of what I did say.”

He even took arms against the Murdoch-owned New York Post, which posted its story with the headline, “RFK Jr. says Tylenol after circumcisions linked to autism,” and proceeded to debunk the claim.

In trying to clarify his point, however, Kennedy dug himself a deeper hole. According to his tweet, the two studies he was referring to at the cabinet meeting were a Danish study from 2015 and a non-peer-reviewed preprint posted online in August, which refers to the Danish paper. Kennedy mischaracterizes both.

Contrary to Kennedy’s implication, the Danish study did not address the use of acetaminophen (called “paracetamol” in the paper) in connection with circumcision. The reason, its authors wrote, was that “we had no data available on analgesics or possible local anesthetics used during ritual circumcisions in our cohort, so we were unable to address the paracetamol hypothesis directly.”

They did note, however, that the acetaminophen theory had only “limited empirical support.” In other words, evidence was lacking. Anyway, the Danish study was criticized — in the same journal that had published it — for its reliance on a very small sample of children.

As for the preprint, contrary to Kennedy’s description, it did not identify the Danish paper as offering “the most compelling ‘standalone’ evidence” for an autism-acetaminophen link. That language referred to three studies, one of which was the Danish paper. Of the other papers, one was based on later interviews with parents. The other was a study of the effects of acetaminophen on 10-day-old mice, not human children.

I asked Kennedy’s agency to clarify his claim and to explain the discrepancies between his words and the papers themselves, but received no reply.

To summarize, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top federal healthcare official, conjured up a connection between circumcision and autism via a relationship between circumcision and Tylenol that is unsupported by the research he cited. Indeed, the Danish paper describes the idea that boys undergoing circumcision invariably are given acetaminophen for pain as “a questionable assumption.”

In searching for empirical support for the acetaminophen theory, moreover, the Danish paper cited a 2010 paper funded by NIH that cautioned: “No evidence is presented here that acetaminophen in any way causes autism. … This hypothesis is largely based on multiple lines of often weak evidence.” Anyway, the paper was focused on a possible link between acetaminophen use and asthma, not autism.

Sadly, this sort of mischaracterization of research described as “a rigorous scientific framework” (RFK Jr.’s words) isn’t surprising coming from today’s Department of Health and Human Services. This is the agency, it may be recalled, that in May issued an “assessment” of the health of America’s children that cited at least seven sources that did not exist.

Nothing can stop unwary parents from relying on the judgment of Donald Trump or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to make healthcare decisions for their infants and children. But they should be warned: They do so at their own and their offsprings’ risk.