Disney, ABC Family & the ESPN's SD & HD works fine on DirecTv. I guess DirecTv payed their bill, These others providers that are having issues are trying to get by on the cheap. That just don't cut it, they ask a price for content and don't want a low ball offer.
The same thing happened with National Programming Service and C band. They thought they could dictate to Disney what they would pay. It ended up with no Disney, ABC Family and ESPN on C band for the last few years. The ones that loose out are the subscribers since they loose programming they want. NPS came up with all kind of excuses saying Disney was the Evil one when in fact it was NPS that was, same with Dish TWC etc. The programmers want to provide content to anyone, but the cost is the cost. When the providers go beyond the wiggle room that the programmer allows, it ends up in a stalemate.
so what you're saying is that these providers pay the exhorbitant and hiway robbery rates to the program providers? great idea.