Some of that is likely trade secrets for ESPN. I wouldn't be shocked the criteria for cancelling the network has to do with some calculations that if known to the public, could put ESPN on a tough spot.

Since ESPN has a huge fee, that is what gets the attention. The ones who are worried are the smaller fish such as TBS and others like Scripps Networks. Cable is not a buffet. All of the packages above local antenna have ESPN. As the price goes up, it's harder and harder to get people to pay for internet and for TV. The millennials are not that interested in sports. Look at all the empty seats in student sections around the country. Of course the athletic departments make it harder and harder for students to attend games and give them fewer and fewer good seats, but that's another rant.

10 years ago broadcast was the shining star at Disney. Now it's the studios and the theme parks. The broadcast division with cable (ESPN, ABC, ABC local stations, and Disney network) would be big enough to spin off. Then the new entity could go the the sports leagues and ask for a haircut. I would love to see Roger Goddell's reaction to that. They really overpaid for the NFL, especially since they do not the true jewels. Monday Night football has been a dog ever since Sunday Night Football moved to NBC.

The huge contract with FOX for Big 10 (and the crown jewel of Ohio State/Michigan) shows that there is still a market for big events, but it has to special.

More cuts coming.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/espn-talent-layoffs-cost-cutting-1202002806/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-30/espn-has-seen-the-future-of-tv-and-they-re-not-really-into-it

Whoa nelly.

Quote:

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ESPN still towers over its rivals in cable programming. Short of criminal enterprise, few business models in the world have been as lucrative. A typical cable (or satellite) bundle costs about $100 per household. In simplified form, when a customer sends in a monthly payment, the cable company sends a cut to each channel included in this bundle. Some channels get paid more than others, and ESPN gets the most. Carriers pay an average of $7.21 per month for every customer who gets ESPN as part of a bundle, according to Kagan. Fox News, by comparison, gets $1.41; Bravo, 30.

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It's owned by one of the world's biggest media companies.
It has no significant challenger in that niche.
It's probably not going anywhere.

The issues are:

1. Contracts for events rights have exploded, especially the NFL and NBA
2. Push back from cable and satellite providers against fee increases
3. Cord Cutters
4. Highlights available on social media mean Sports Center is no longer the place where fans turns for game results and highlights.

The big question is how to fix it. Pay per view for big games? The problem is that this will lead to Bristol's nightmare, ala carte pricing for cable and satellite. Also 20 somethings would rather watch a Game of Thrones binge marathon than most sporting events. I am old, and I remember what pay per view did to boxing.

I still think that there will be continued pressure on the Mouse to spin off broadcast, except possibly the Disney Channel. Then a new owner could go to the leagues, conferences and especially the sips and force them to renegotiate the deals. I know production costs have decreased, but how many people really watch a lot of the events on ESPN? Do these deals make money? I know I would rather watch a midweek college baseball game or a college basketball game than anything on HGTV, but I have a feeling that I am in the minority.

The one solution that could help would be Bet ESPN, where you could place bets on events legally through an ap of ESPN's. That may take awhile to get approved.

This will all become more complicated by challenges to net neutrality. Trump's FCC commissioner has hinted at updating the current regulations and taking away some of the neutrality. That could be a game changer for streaming companies and media providers. I don't know how that all plays out in the end but streaming media kind of reminds me of the internet boom in the 90's when there was uncertainty as to how this new whiz bang thing called the internet was going to be monetized

You are definitely in the minority on the HGTV thing. Pretty sure that channel is a cash cow.

I read something that nearly 80% of cable subscribers don't watch ESPN. If that's isn't a harbinger of doom, I don't know what is.

HTownAg98 said:

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I read something that nearly 80% of cable subscribers don't watch ESPN. If that's isn't a harbinger of doom, I don't know what is.

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Now, is that 80% don't watch ESPN at all? Or they don't watch non-live sporting events on ESPN? There is a big difference there, IMO.

I watch maybe 20 minutes of Mike & Mike while I'm getting ready for work during the week. And that is the ONLY programming I watch on ESPN or ESPN2 that isn't a live game. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who has turned off their typical sports arguing programming.

I used to leave my TV on ESPN, as sportscenter turned over hour after hour. I'd tune in to see if something new happened in the world of sports.

If Sportscenter wasn't on, a live sporting event was.

It's not like that these days.

I have absolutely zero interest in all their talking head debate shows. Zero. So unless a live sporting event is on that i want to watch, I dont tune in anymore.

In that vein....I've never watched ESPN News, or ESPNU or ESPN Classic (unless there was a rare occasion when a live event was broadcast on there). Do those make money? Seems like they're giant cost centers...especially considering they can have a bunch of alternate channels if they have live events simultaneously.

Squadron7 said:

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ESPN is great for televised sporting events.

Then they decided that two or three boors arguing over sports as though they were in a corner bar was something that needed to be televised.

And then they decided to go Full SJW.

Never go Full SJW.

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We kept in on ESPN when I worked at a gym 10 years ago, even back then the debate shows were extremely repetitive. There are even more of those shows now. Considering there isn't much (if any) more sports news per day now than there has been in the past, I can only imagine how annoying it would be to watch a full day of ESPN programming.

I know that is true in my house on HGTV. I would be willing to bet HGTV pays Chip and Joanna a lot less than ESPN will be paying Mike Greenberg.

Right now the HGTV business model is looking a better right now than ESPN. Hard to imagine a Mike & Mike line of furniture.

Human Interest Story 1
Human Interest Story 2
Human Interest Story 3
Human Interest Story 4
Sports Blurb

Repeat

They might when their shareholders start dumping Mickey Mouse stock when they are losing money hand over fist.

ntxVOL said:

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This will all become more complicated by challenges to net neutrality. Trump's FCC commissioner has hinted at updating the current regulations and taking away some of the neutrality. That could be a game changer for streaming companies and media providers. I don't know how that all plays out in the end but streaming media kind of reminds me of the internet boom in the 90's when there was uncertainty as to how this new whiz bang thing called the internet was going to be monetized

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My wife was at a data science conference last September and one of the speakers was from ESPN.
They are (were) already working on targeted ads based not just on what teams you like, but how they are doing. Like real time if your team is winning showing ads that are upbeat and exciting; while if they are losing something aimed at depressed fans.
Cutting the cord and end of net neutrality won't hurt them (if the people in charge know what they are doing).

Madman said:

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Human Interest Story 1
Human Interest Story 2
Human Interest Story 3
Human Interest Story 4
Sports Blurb

Repeat

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Guys, there's a simple solution to all of this.

Stop letting your wives do all of the household spending. Women make up 85% of consumer spending, and advertisers demand shows that cater to them.

Scruffy said:

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ntxVOL said:

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This will all become more complicated by challenges to net neutrality. Trump's FCC commissioner has hinted at updating the current regulations and taking away some of the neutrality. That could be a game changer for streaming companies and media providers. I don't know how that all plays out in the end but streaming media kind of reminds me of the internet boom in the 90's when there was uncertainty as to how this new whiz bang thing called the internet was going to be monetized

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My wife was at a data science conference last September and one of the speakers was from ESPN.
They are (were) already working on targeted ads based not just on what teams you like, but how they are doing. Like real time if your team is winning showing ads that are upbeat and exciting; while if they are losing something aimed at depressed fans.
Cutting the cord and end of net neutrality won't hurt them (if the people in charge know what they are doing).

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Not sure why the end of net neutrality would be a benefit to Disney when combined with cord cutting. They don't own an ISP or an backbone network, so they would need to pay ATT etc for higher quality access. If anything, net neutrality would be a benefit for ESPN's internet distribution in a cord cutting world. It isn't like there will be an upstart competitor that will have the rights to stream the same games.

Now, to delay cord cutting, net neutrality might matter (AT&T could theoretically grant priority access to ESPN via their distribution (DIRECTV online) rather than directly from ESPN al la cart.

The stat I posted earlier has to do with 80% of cable subscribers don't watch espn at all. Of course, you could probably say that about every channel. The problem is that espn has much higher production costs than say AMC of Lifetime.

There is a correction in the market coming,l. It may not kill espn, but it's going to hurt for a good while.

HTownAg98 said:

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They might when their shareholders start dumping Mickey Mouse stock when they are losing money hand over fist.

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I don't think that will ever happen. They can make enough money corrupting the minds of our kids that ESPN won't drag them down. In the minds of Disney's higher ups, it's worth losing money to make sure they maintain the far-left slant in the sports world.

that is crazy talk

cone said:

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that is crazy talk

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Liberals are crazy.

Quote:

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ESPN content is dictated directly by the far-left social justice warrior pieces of **** who run Disney. They know their viewers don't like the content or agree with their agenda, but they don't care...even if they lose money. They think they are doing a social good by forcing traditionalist/conservative sports fans to endure their SJW bull**** . It's the liberal way...force it down everybody's throats until they just stop fighting it. Even if ESPN is hemorrhaging money, I don't think Disney will cut the bull**** .

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Do you understand the concept of "fiduciary duty"? As a public corporation, Disney execs are required to try to maximize shareholder value. Regardless of what you've read Clay Travis has written for clicks from his base, it can't be proven at this point that politics have contributed to ESPNs financial issues. What's happenning to ESPN is happening to almost every network. The difference is that ESPNs revenue was exponentially larger, so the declines are exponentially larger. And that's magnified by the very significant long-term agreements they are locked into that other networks are not. What's happenning to ESPN is happening to many other networks that have no issue with politics whatsoever, it just doesn't get written about as much because the stories aren't excessive. If shareholders can point to Iger ignoring financial responsibility, he's got a problem. But he can very easily disprive the theory by pointing to consistent industry wide issues.

Then why did they give a person an award for being a ******? How did that maximize shareholder value?


Untapped ****** market?



Since ****** is censored.

Jenner

shareholders aren't

there's no vanity department / dead weight allowed

ESPN has drifted into unnecessary crazy politics

but it's not because they want to get on the right side of history

they think it will drive clicks and viewership

it appears not to be working

All they had to do is look at the success of MSNBC to see how well this would work.

it would work better if their audience wasn't so heterogeneous

and if the people they were targeting actually watched sports

that's the hidden reality. younger viewers don't watch games.

I'm an attorney. I know what a fiduciary duty is. ESPN is a small part of Disney, and they can maintain adequate profitability just fine without it.