The Walt Disney Co. said it signed a deal with the National Cable Television Cooperative covering retransmission consent rights payments with ABC's owned and operated stations.
It's the first time NCTC and Disney have signed a retrans deal. More of the approximately 50 NCTC members in ABC O&O footprints had individual deals to carry the stations.
In August, Disney and NCTC, a group representing about 950 small cable operators nationwide, reached a distribution agreement covering Disney's sports, news and entertainment cable channels.
The new Disney-NCTC deal gives the operators rights to provide the Watch ABC authenticated live streaming video service to customers.
"We are pleased to have reached, for the first time, a retransmission consent agreement with the Walt Disney Company that supports our members' efforts to competitively offer their customers the ABC owned broadcast station programming in these critical television markets," Judy Meyka, NCTC executive VP of programming, said in a statement.
"NCTC and its members clearly value the important role our highly-rated ABC stations play in their local communities, and we look forward to providing compelling and meaningful content for their customers," said David Preschlack, executive vice president, affiliate sales and marketing, Disney & ESPN Networks.
