The Walt Disney Company has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by streaming consumers over the company’s prior practice of bundling ESPN with entertainment and local broadcast channels.
The suit, filed in California several years ago, claims subscribers of YouTube TV and DIRECTV were wrongly overcharged for service because Disney insisted on bundling ESPN, one of the most-expensive pay TV channels for a service to carry, with its local broadcast stations, entertainment networks and kids channels like Freeform, FX and the Disney Channel.
Rather than continue the case, Disney has opted to settle the matter for $50 million, without admitting wrongdoing. Customers of DIRECTV and YouTube TV now have the option to purchase ESPN as part of a genre-based package of channels, or other Disney-owned networks based on themes like entertainment, children’s programming and news.
DIRECTV and YouTube were not plaintiffs in the case.
Ninety percent of the settlement will be paid to subscribers of YouTube TV or DIRECTV’s streaming services — including DIRECTV Stream and AT&T TV Now — who had an eligible plan between April 2019 and March of this year. Eligible subscribers live in one of 38 states covered by the original case, according to court documents.
Residents of 12 other states — Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming — will be eligible for the remaining 10 percent of the disbursement, according to court records.
It wasn’t clear how much subscribers can expect to receive in terms of a financial reimbursement. The only way to receive a cash award in the case is to submit a claim at this link before September 8, 2026.
The settlement does not resolve an ongoing issue involving Disney’s bundling practices with Fubo, which now exists as a subsidiary pay TV business partially owned by the company. Plaintiffs in the case who were subscribers of Fubo have yet to settle with Disney over that platform’s bundling practices, according to a legal notice.
