Hours before the fall's first “Monday Night Football” game, Disney and Charter Communications have settled a business dispute that had left some 15 million cable TV customers without ESPN and other Disney channels.
Disney said that because of the deal, the majority of its ESPN customers would have service restored to Charter's Spectrum cable system immediately. Charter confirmed the deal Monday.
The agreement was announced hours before the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills were to debut their season on ESPN and ESPN2. It's the first game for the Jets with Aaron Rodgers as quarterback, and many Spectrum customers are in the New York area.
Charter had sought access to Disney's streaming services for its customers and, as part of the deal, both sides said that the Disney+ ad-supported service and ESPN+ would be offered to select Spectrum customers. They also said that ESPN's direct-to-consumer service, which is still in the works, will be part of the Spectrum service.
Under the deal, Spectrum will offer its customers a lineup of 19 Disney-owned stations. Charter had sought greater flexibility to let its cable customers pick and choose which networks it wanted as part of their service.
Financial terms were not revealed.
“Our collective goal has always been to build an innovative model for the future,” Disney CEO Robert Iger and Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said in a prepared, joint statement.
“This deal recognizes both the continued value of linear television and the growing popularity of streaming services while addressing the evolving needs of our customers," they said.
Many television viewers were less interested in the business particulars than they fact that they couldn't watch ESPN during the U.S. Open tennis tournament and opening weekend of the college football season.
But the matchup Monday between the Buffalo Bills, one of the most powerful teams in the NFL, and the New York Jets led by new quarterback Aaron Rodgers, was another huge deadline.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
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It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
