Dish and Disney Sign Agreement for Live and On-Demand Streaming
How important is the satellite? Perhaps not very. Dish and Disney announced the results of a vast agreement today, one that shows Dish sees online delivery as crucial to its future. The deal isn't a complete win for Dish subscribers, as the company's celebrated (and controversial) AutoHop feature will no longer work the same for ABC prime time content.
Under the agreement, Dish gains steaming rights for linear and video-on-demand content from ABC broadcast stations, ABC Family, Disney Chanel, ESPN, and ESPN2. Dish says the rights pave the way for new services in the future. It remains to be seen if those services will be a part of a traditional Dish subscription, or if Dish is building an online TV service, as has been widely rumored.
Dish customers are gaining new Disney channels, including Watch ESPN, Watch Disney, Watch ABC Family, and Watch ABC, which they'll be able to stream live or on-demand inside or out of the home.
Gaining this online access took more than money on Dish's part: the company had to agree to disable AutoHop -- which automatically skips ads for primetime broadcast content -- for ABC programming within the C3 window. The C3 model is a standard for advertisers, where broadcasters are paid for ads viewed during the live airing of a show and for three days of DVR viewing. Presumably, AutoHop will work as it previously did for ABC prime time content viewed on a DVR after the three day window has ended.
The deal also includes provisions for dynamic ad insertion and advertising on mobile devices. Further, Disney agreed to drop legal charges related to Dish's PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop features. For more details on the agreement, including renewed carriage agreements for ABC stations, see the full release.
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