The news: Disney’s multiplatform Super Bowl strategy could cause issues for ABC affiliates and marketers over viewership and ad revenue losses.

• Disney plans to air the Super Bowl across both broadcast and streaming platforms, including Disney+ and NFL Network. The game will also air on ESPN and ABC.
• That combination of different platforms could cause ad revenues for broadcast viewership to fall as much as 35%, according to an anonymous station group CEO cited by CNBC.
• CNBC also noted that around 3% of most local affiliate stations’ (who pay owners of the broadcast networks to air the game, such as Disney for ABC) ad revenues come from the Super Bowl when it airs on their network.
• The Super Bowl has aired on streaming services like Peacock before, which allows local affiliates to sell ads to streaming viewers—a system Disney services do not support.

Zooming out: Traditional TV’s fall from grace is the simple reason for Disney’s expansion of Super Bowl coverage.

• While over-the-air (OTA) viewership will slightly increase through 2030, per our forecast, OTA viewers remain a minority, representing only 18.6% of US adults this year.