Technologies

YouTube TV Starts Giving $20 Credits for Extended ESPN and ABC Outage

As its contract dispute between Disney stretches into its second full week, YouTube has started sending subscribers payouts.

YouTube TV’s contract dispute with Disney has now cost its subscribers two weekends of college football and will also likely cause them to miss yet another Monday Night Football game tonight.

All of the Disney-owned streaming channels, including ABC, ESPN, the ACC Network and the SEC Networks, were removed from YouTube TV on Oct. 31 and have not returned since.

The disagreement causing the ABC and ESPN outage stems from the «carriage fee» that YouTube TV pays Disney to broadcast its channels. Disney has faced similar negotiating standoffs with other broadcasters in recent years, including an earlier 2021 outage on YouTube TV that was resolved in two days.

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Disney says YouTube TV is not paying enough to stream its channels. YouTube TV, owned by Google, has the most subscribers among all internet TV providers, with over 9 million. Hulu, owned by Disney, is second with 4.3 million subscribers through its Hulu + Live TV offering.

YouTube TV had promised subscribers a $20 credit for the streaming service if the Disney channels outage continued for an extended period, and on Sunday, the streaming service announced the details of that credit. Read on to learn how you can claim the $20 credit, when the outage might be resolved, and how you can watch ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels in the meantime.

How can YouTube TV subscribers claim their $20 credit?

YouTube TV subscribers should receive an email from the service when their credits are available. After you’ve received your email, follow these steps to claim your $20 credit.

Log in to YouTube.com on a web browser, click or tap on your profile picture, then select Settings. You can also directly browse to the URL at https://tv.youtube.com/settings/service_updates.
At the bottom of the menu on the left, select Updates.
On the following screen that explains the Disney channels outage, click or tap the blue button marked Claim Credit.

Emails from YouTube TV started going out Sunday night, and several Reddit posters have already reported receiving the $20 credit. All of the credits for YouTube TV subscribers should be issued by Nov. 12, according to Variety.

Which Disney channels were removed from YouTube TV?

Sports fans aren’t the only viewers left sidelined by the loss of Disney channels from YouTube TV. Here are all the channels that have been removed from the streaming service:

ABC
ABC News Live
ACC Network
Baby TV Español (Spanish Plan)
Disney Channel
Disney Junior
Disney XD
ESPN
ESPN Deportes (Spanish Plan)
ESPNews
ESPNU
ESPN2
Freeform
FX
FXM
FXX
Localish
Nat Geo
Nat Geo Mundo (Spanish Plan)
Nat Geo Wild
SEC Network

When could Disney channels return to YouTube TV?

As with previous Disney disputes, negotiations are under wraps. Disney’s contract conflicts from previous years — Sling TV in 2022, Spectrum/Charter in 2023 and DirecTV in 2024 — were mostly resolved in a week or two, but Google has considerably more bargaining power than those other platforms.

According to Variety, if a deal is reached between Disney and YouTube, the missing channels will return «in a matter of hours.»

On Oct. 30, YouTube TV posted on X, «Members, when we renew our contracts with network partners, we advocate for fair pricing to offer you the best TV experience.»

«Google’s YouTube TV has chosen to deny its subscribers the content they value most by refusing to pay fair rates for our channels, including ESPN and ABC,» Disney said in a statement to CNBC.

In a memo to employees on Oct. 31 that was also reported by CNBC, Disney accused YouTube TV of deleting «previously recorded shows and events from their subscribers’ libraries.»

«YouTube TV and its owner, Google, are not interested in achieving a fair deal with us,» Disney Entertainment co-chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in the memo. «Instead, they want to use their power and extraordinary resources to eliminate competition and devalue the very content that helped them build their service.»

Disney is also asking its viewers to ask YouTube TV to bring back its broadcasting via the keepmynetworks.com site.

How can YouTube TV subscribers watch football games during the Disney outage?

YouTube TV subscribers with an aerial TV antenna can still watch Monday Night Football and college football games on ABC if they live close enough to receive an over-the-air broadcast signal from a local ABC affiliate.

Other than that, the only real option for viewers who want to watch all of the college football and basketball games this weekend and Monday Night Football at home is to subscribe to another service that provides ABC and ESPN, including ESPN+, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, Fubo or DirecTV Stream.

Sling TV offers a $5 Day Pass that could be a good option for viewers who want to watch one specific game, as well as a $10 Weekend Pass that would give you college football and basketball games for both days.

For those looking to find football games at local establishments, this handy app can help you find places that are showing the games.

Correction, Nov. 5: An earlier version of this story failed to note that Sling TV day and weekend passes can be used to watch local ABC affiliates only in certain markets.

Technologies

Roblox Will Pay $12 Million to Settle Nevada Child Safety Lawsuit

The deal with the Nevada attorney general will require Roblox to have stricter safeguards to protect children online.

Popular gaming platform Roblox agreed to pay more than $12 million and implement new safety features as part of a settlement with the state of Nevada. This settlement comes amid several lawsuits accusing the company of an alleged lack of protection of children on the platform.

The agreement resolves potential litigation over allegations that Roblox failed to adequately safeguard children while they played the online game, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a press release on Wednesday.

As part of the deal, Roblox will spend $10 million over three years to encourage children to engage in non-digital activities, as well as institute age verification for all users. This will include «facial age estimation technology and government-issued ID for age assurance, and will use behavioral monitoring to identify users who may have been aged incorrectly,» according to the press release.

«The injunctive relief that Roblox has agreed to will give parents the tools they need to protect their children on the platform; institute default protections to block predators from engaging with children; and ensure that messages involving minors are not encrypted,» Ford said in the press release.

Roblox also committed to spending $1 million over two years on a campaign to educate minors and adults about online safety and another $1.5 million to develop a law enforcement liaison position to work with state law enforcement agencies over concerns about the platform.

Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said it’s part of the company’s «work to establish a new standard for digital safety.»

«This resolution creates a blueprint for how industry and regulators can work together to protect the next generation of digital citizens,» Kaufman said Thursday. «We have no finish line when it comes to safety.»

Roblox is under significant legal pressure amid more than 140 lawsuits, according to Reuters. The suits, filed in 2025, allege the company knowingly created a gaming platform that allowed child predators to target minors.

The company also faces lawsuits from state attorneys general in Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and Florida over similar accusations.

Age-based accounts coming soon

Two days before the settlement announcement, Roblox CEO and founder David Baszucki revealed new accounts for younger Roblox users.

Roblox Kids will be available for children between the ages of 5 and 8, and Roblox Select is for those ages 9 to 15. Roblox is reportedly used by nearly half of US children under 16. Children who are older than 16 will be in their own age group, simply called «Roblox.»

Kids and Select accounts would be available in those age groups as determined by Roblox’s age-check technology or by a verified parent.

Unmonitored chat in the game has been a point of criticism for the platform, as it allows predators to chat with children. Kids’ accounts will have chat turned off by default, with limited access to Minimal or Mild games as determined by the platform. Select accounts will have chat with safeguards and access to games with Moderate content, which is described by the platforms as having «moderate violence, light realistic blood, moderate crude humor, unplayable gambling content, and/or moderate fear.»

These new age-based accounts will roll out sometime in early June.

Technologies

Opera Adds Browser Connector Feature to Integrate AI Chatbots Into Browsers

New feature will allow users to include the AI tools of their choice.

Opera announced Thursday the launch of a new tool that allows users of its browsers to include more AI chatbots in their browsing experience.

Browser Connector is a free feature for Opera One and Opera GX browsers that allows users to integrate AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude into their live browsing sessions via Model Context Protocol. MCP is an open standard developed by Anthropic that allows for a secure two-way connection between AI models, external data sources and tools such as search engines.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Last month, Opera introduced MCP compatibility to Opera Neon, its subscription-based agentic AI browser. Opera says the new feature willallow a user’s AI of choice to provide real-time context of open tabs and active content.

«With Browser Connector, Opera ensures users aren’t bound to a single company’s ecosystem, but are instead free to combine the best tools for their specific needs,» Mohamed Salah, senior director of product at Opera, said in a statement.

To enable the feature, which is now available in Early Bird mode, users need to go to Settings in the browser, search for «AI Services» and install the Browser Connector feature. They then have to connect ChatGPT or Claude to the feature.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 17, #571

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 17 No. 571.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tricky one, especially the purple category. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: «Yer out!»

Green group hint: They score goals.

Blue group hint: Daddy dearest.

Purple group hint: Home, home on the…