No Bad Blood

A combined Disney-Comcast wasn’t in the cards (not yet anyway…), but the 2 have worked out a deal to provide plenty of broadband content to the MSO’s high-speed subs. UBS’ Aryeh Bourkoff thinks the move could bode well for a renegotiation of Comcast’s ESPN deal. Given Cox [COX] and Charter’s [CHTR] distribution agreements, "we believe Comcast could leverage the most favored nation (MFN) clause in its contracts with ESPN to renegotiate new terms for its existing ESPN contracts, which we believe are set to expire in 2006 for AT&T Broadband and in 2009 for Comcast historical systems," Bourkoff said in a note to clients. ABC News Live, which retails for $4.95/sub, launched yesterday and is being offered to Comcast subs for free. Later this year, Comcast will launch kids channel "Disney Connection," marking the 1st US launch of the product, which features games, video, etc. While some of the content is free of charge, the deal is structured to provide for an upsale opportunity (i.e., Disney Blast) and a revenue sharing model. Comcast seems especially excited about the kids’ content, noting that 40% of the their broadband users have children.