The outage began about 7 p.m. PDT, shortly before the federal government shutdown <\/a>\u2014 a national news story that Univision journalists have been covering. In addition to Univision and Unimas programming, the blackout covers the company\u2019s local stations, including its flagship KMEX-TV Channel 34 in Los Angeles and outlets in San Diego, San Francisco, Fresno and Bakersfield. <\/p>\n The impasse occurred as another deadline loomed in separate contract talks between YouTube TV and NBCUniversal, raising the possibility of a second blackout. Both Univision and NBCUniversal\u2019s distribution agreements were set to expire Tuesday night. But at the deadline, NBCUniversal granted YouTube TV a short-term extension to allow the two sides additional time to continue working on a new deal. <\/p>\n NBCUniversal, which owns Telemundo, the other major Spanish-language broadcaster, has more TV networks and NFL \u201cSunday Night Football,\u201d and thus, more leverage in negotiations. <\/p>\n Univision\u2019s lineup includes news, dramas, popular soccer matches and games during next week\u2019s Major League Baseball playoffs, which could feature the Dodgers should the L.A. team advance to the next round. <\/p>\n \u201cUnivision is a trusted voice for Hispanic Americans, especially in times of emergencies, elections and for other critical news and events,\u201d TelevisaUnivision Chief Executive Daniel Alegre wrote in an open letter last week when the company launched its \u201cDo the Right Thing Google\u201d campaign that included outreach to major politicians. <\/p>\n Univision broadcasts the popular \u201cPremio Lo Nuestro\u201d music awards show.<\/p>\n (Univision)<\/p>\n Alegre added that Latinos could form a pivotal voting bloc in redistricting battles in California and Texas, governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, and next year\u2019s midterm elections in contested states such as Georgia and Florida.<\/p>\n Prominent members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), have demanded answers from Google executives, including Chief Executive Sundar Pichai. Some lawmakers expressed concern that both major outlets \u2014 Univision and Telemundo \u2014 would be dropped.<\/p>\n A major sticking point in the Univision talks was YouTube TV\u2019s proposal to shift the company\u2019s channels from its basic plan, which is available to all subscribers, and put the Univision channel on a more expensive Spanish-language add-on package. <\/p>\n Univision cried foul, saying the switch would amount to an 18% rate increase for its Spanish-language viewers. The move would also dramatically cut the revenue the broadcaster receives because YouTube and other distributors pay fees based on the number of subscribers that have access to a channel.<\/p>\n \u201cGoogle shouldn\u2019t be abusing its monopoly power by forcing millions of Texans & Americans to pay extra for Spanish-language programming,\u201d Cruz said in a message on X. \u201cThat\u2019s not right & it\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n YouTube<\/a> is flexing its market muscle. Google has become the dominant video provider in the U.S., according to Nielsen, with the main YouTube platform attracting more than 120 million active daily users. <\/p>\n The YouTube TV service also has become a major draw with more than 10 million customer homes that receive traditional TV channel packages that include NBC, ABC, Fox News and Comedy Central.<\/p>\n A YouTube spokesperson downplayed Univision\u2019s departure, saying the Spanish-language company continues to have a massive following on its main YouTube site with more than \u201c160 million subscribers and billions of views across YouTube, where they generate ad revenue from their content.\u201d<\/p>\n However, on the paid service, YouTube TV, the Spanish-language programming \u201conly represents a tiny fraction of overall consumption,\u201d the YouTube spokesperson said.<\/p>\n The blackout comes a month after YouTube avoided a collision with Rupert Murdoch\u2019s Fox Corp<\/a>. The two companies<\/a> hammered out a new distribution deal a few days after the August deadline. <\/p>\n NBCUniversal\u2019s talks with Google have also been rocky. The tech behemoth has expressed a desire to fold Peacock programming onto its YouTube TV platform rather than the current stand-alone service. But NBCUniversal has balked because it has spent billions of dollars building Peacock and it wants to remain the conduit for its customers.<\/p>\n YouTube TV launched in April 2017 for $35 a month. The package of channels now costs $82.99. <\/p>\n In a bid for more sports fans, YouTube TV took over the NFL Sunday Ticket premium sports package from DirecTV, which had been losing more than $100 million a year to maintain the NFL service. YouTube TV offers Sunday Ticket as a base plan add-on or as an individual channel on YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"YouTube TV dropped Univision\u2019s Spanish-language networks late Tuesday, a contentious turn in a simmering dispute that has already…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[49694,327,125009,31985,171,2722,13141,16629,144458,4143,144457,61267,173,67,132,144455,68,144456,144459,100250],"class_list":{"0":"post-279445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-billion","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-contract-dispute","11":"tag-deadline","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-google","14":"tag-member","15":"tag-nbcuniversal","16":"tag-platform-stripping-million","17":"tag-revenue","18":"tag-spanish-language-company","19":"tag-subscriber","20":"tag-tv","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-univision-channel","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-youtube-customer","26":"tag-youtube-spokesperson","27":"tag-youtube-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n