I think any television provider losing all the ABC-Disney channels long-term is a potential corporation-killer. That's because they have properties that cut across a large swath of viewing interests.
First, you have sports fans for whom ESPN and ESPN2 are must haves, and for whom ESPNU and some of the other channels are important added-value things. Now, I know Dish has talked about abandoning sports fans and going after non-sports viewing TV consumers, which is a tough proposition even in and of itself, because most families have at least one or two at least casual sports fans in them even if the main TV decision maker is not a sports fan, and you have to at least give enough so that the main television decision maker isn't suddenly very unpopular with the rest of the family, but it goes beyond that in this case, because these aren't just sports channels in the mix.
You go after that non-sports demographic and a big chunk of that is probably women and children. Guess what an important channel for the kids is? Disney. I would assume, anyway. ABC Family is probably also something there's an interest in from that demographic. And there's a whole package of other channels that have nothing to do with sports or children that would also be lost.
You lose all those channels and $5 off a month or something won't cut it. You'd have to discount your packages so massively that you wouldn't make any money. People might buy an ABC-Disneyless package without the ESPNs and everything else, but they won't pay much for it. I mean, they'll always be a few people, but I am talking the majority of your customers.
You'd almost have to come back and offer something like AT200 for $30- regular price- to keep customers in place. That's not financially doable, I'd imagine. Which is why everyone always works something out with ABC-Disney. They don't really have a choice.
Plus, in the modern world, live stuff like sports and news is what keeps subs. If people mainly want to watch movies, they can rent them individually streaming direct to their television with a roku or something more cheaply than buying a broad package if they want new releases, or do a broad subscription service for like $8 a month to get an unlimited mix of older titles and B-movies. Most TV series are similar. Want to watch Dr. Who? Episodes are $1.99 to buy to stream until the end of time from Amazon- or $15 for the 8 episode DVD set of the most recent half season. Dish pointed this out to a ton of their customers when they lost AMC and told them how they could watch Mad Men for less monthly through the Internet.
It's the exclusivity and the live nature of sports that makes it harder to duplicate on the Internet, at least legally. If the local teams say you can only watch our games through your cable or satellite service, that's just how it is. If you're a fan of a team, that keeps you around.
I've gotten rid of pay television for a while because I am in the process of moving and I miss sports and live news, and that's about it. When I want to watch movies or dramas or comedies or whatever, there are other less expensive ways to do it right on my television. I pulled out some old DVDs I had in boxes, I bought some episodes of Dr. Who streaming, I get Netflix DVDs in the mail one at a time- all at a cost far less than any pay television service. What I miss is watching my favorite baseball team (That's the main sport going on this time of year) and my favorite news channel. And there is not yet live legal streaming of teams from your home region- the MLB streaming package are for out of market games only. And I don't know of a live streaming news channel that would be to my tastes (I like MSNBC). But the Internet has movies and TV shows mostly covered.