YouTube loses ESPN over red subscription deal

A major sports channel has pulled out from video-sharing platform YouTube over its new subscription service. 

Late Friday, TechCrunch said majority of the videos by ESPN has been removed from YouTube in the US purportedly because of content rights issues. The tech site confirmed that despite of the fact that parent company Disney has an ongoing agreement with YouTube Red, ESPN reportedly does not have permission to distribute its video content because of its distribution contracts with other partners/advertisers. 

ESPN is not currently part of the Red service. Content previously available on the free YouTube service will be available across ESPN digital properties,” ESPN said in a statement. 

On Wednesday, Google (now Alphabet) released YouTube Red, a USD10 per month subscription that would allow users to view video content without any ad interruption. According to the search engine giant, the service will launch in the US by October 28.