Verizon recently announced a skinny package of cable channels with genre bundles to cut the price of having a cable package while allowing a sort of al-a-carte system where customers can choose sports or kids bundles. Each comes with 10 to 17 channels for $10 per month.

Disney owned sports channel ESPN has taken issue with Verizon's new service, claiming it goes against the terms in the current contract. ESPN notes Verizon isn't allowed to offer ESPN on the side of its main cable service, meaning Verizon may have to bundle it with the skinny package to avoid a lawsuit.

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This is the first time we've heard of such a contract but we suspect they are not too uncommon. Most premium channels want to get to as many customers as possible. The cable provider pays for the views and reaps more from advertising contracts due to a larger audience.

ESPN is one of the largest cable channels available, alongside USA Network, AMC and HBO. Disney has fought tooth and nail for it to be the prime time for sports entertainment and Verizon's new bundles deal pushes it off to the side with Fox Sports and other second grade sports channels.

Even though it might be useful to have all of this content bundled together for consumers, Disney is looking out for itself. Having a smaller audience means less TV licensing and less advertising revenue. That leads to less programming on the network.

Sling TV -- Dish Network's internet TV service that also offers bundles -- had to add ESPN and ESPN2 into the main 20 channels to win over Disney. It's said Apple is also facing issues over Disney's resilience to have ESPN as bundled content, or part of any al-a-carte system where customers can choose to own it or not.

ESPN features a wide range of sports and entertainment programs and has become the go-to place for those sorts of programs over the past 10 years. It seems to be going along nicely with the new move into internet TV, as long as it's not pushed off to the side.

TagsDisney, verizon, FiOS TV, cable TV, al-a-carte