The Varsity Disney vs. YouTube & Nielsen’s New Math
Nov 5, 2025
Julia Alexander, a media and streaming reporter with insights into carriage disputes and sports rights, joins to unravel the impact of Nielsen’s new out-of-home viewership data on Saturday night sports. They discuss the ongoing showdown between YouTube TV and Disney, examining the balance between content leverage and corporate power. Julia outlines how YouTube's unique ad business alters traditional negotiation tactics, and they debate the potential strategies Disney could adopt to strengthen its position in this shifting landscape.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Saturday Night Became Prime Sports Time
- Nielsen's expanded counting of out-of-home viewers has made Saturday night viable for marquee sports programming.
- Networks now place big games on Saturdays because those previously uncounted viewers materially boost ratings.
YouTube's Corporate Scale Changes Leverage
- YouTube's parentage under Google shifts carriage disputes because YouTube TV sits inside a much larger ad and platform business.
- That makes negotiations asymmetric: distributors like YouTube can withstand longer blackouts than legacy operators could.
Attack The Whole YouTube Ecosystem
- Legacy media should consider expanding disputes beyond carriage to VOD and platform-level tactics.
- Use the broader YouTube ecosystem as leverage rather than treating YouTube TV like a standard distributor fight.