DirecTV May Drop ABC Family from Lineup

[Gregg Lengling]

DirecTV is notifying its customers that it may drop ABC Family from its programming lineup at the end of the month.

In a crawl televised to customers, DirecTV said its agreement to carry ABC Family expires March 31. If a new agreement is not reached by that day, ABC Family will no longer be available on the satellite TV service, the crawl said.

The contractual dispute with Disney/ABC concerning ABC Family centers on a 35 percent rate increase proposed for the service, Michael Thornton, DirecTV senior vice president of programming, said. "We decided that in this time of controlling costs," agreeing to the rate increase wasn't a good idea, he said.

The current one-year contract DirecTV has for ABC Family also included a fairly large increase, Thornton said. Discussions between the sides have been going on for a couple of months, and will continue during the next few weeks, he added.

In response, Eric Hollreiser, spokesperson for ABC Cable Networks, said, "We are surprised and disappointed that DirecTV has chosen to threaten their viewers with the loss of ABC Family at this early stage of our negotiations with them. ABC Family brings tremendous value to viewers and has only grown in viewership, quality and value since Disney acquired it.

"We will continue to work hard to reach an agreement with DirecTV to ensure that viewers will continue to enjoy ABC Family's great programs on an uninterrupted basis," Hollreiser added.

The skirmish involving ABC Family doesn't impact other Disney-controlled networks, such as Disney Channel, Toon Disney and the ESPN slate of networks

[mhz40]

...spokesperson for ABC Cable Networks, said, "We are surprised and disappointed that DirecTV has chosen to threaten their viewers with the loss of ABC Family at this early stage of our negotiations with them.

Threaten at this EARLY stage of negotiations?  When did they start negotiating, 2pm?

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