re: ESPN taking a big subscriber hit lately ...

Well they continue to keep clowns like Stephen A and Jemele Hill on the air so it's not surprising people are cutting them out.

While I enjoy the occasional Aussie Rules football game, the fact is that those broadcasts pull in fewer viewers than the talking head shows. I don't watch the commentary programs, but even fewer people watch professional bowling.

While the whole political message thing may not be destroying their subscriber base as much as the idea of cord cutting, it is not helping their cause. One of the main reasons people are probably hesitant about cord cutting is sports imo. If there is no reason to care about i.e. the sports programming sucks... then cord cutting increases. ESPN sucks donkey dick when it comes to what it airs, and yes, they obviously tend to have a left leaning political agenda with several of their personalities. Regardless of your opinion of that, when a heavy dose of CFB fans are in the southeast which is primarily conservative, that is going to backfire.

Even then, why watch ESPN for political bullshite? Even those who agree with some of their agendas probably don't watch because why go there for such news?

In other words, ESPN is run by dumbasses.

For those who need clarity: Cord cutting is the primary reason; political bullshite doesn't help any and probably contributes to more cord cutting because people no longer see ESPN and it's associated networks as needed.

quote:

---

That is really really well put and all the "cable cutting" excuses or "Breitbart" excuses are just that ... excuses.

---

No it isn't.

If ESPN was an optional channel like say HBO and people had to pay extra money just for ESPN then yes we could point to these numbers and say "ESPN fricked up."

But you can't do that. ESPN is part of the basic cable package for most people. The option is to either pay for ESPN or not pay for cable at all.

Are their some single men who only have cable for ESPN who might drop it due to politics? Maybe, but they are statistically insignificant.

What matters is a bigger trend of how people expect to get video content, and the fact that ESPN is clinging to an old dying model because the next model (subscription services) won't make them as much money.

As far as the SEC Network, it will be completely fricked. It's revenues are based on a cable footprint rate that is directly tied to cable subscriptions.

The question is how long until it is completely fricked, and how will the SEC distribute games after its fricked.

This.

I would love to know how many cord cutters regularly watch live sports. Live sports are pretty much the one genre that can't be fully-accessed without cable. I know I'd personally drop DTV if it weren't for live sports. Everything else I watch I could find elsewhere.

And you are also correct about the model. ESPN will eventually have to offer some sort of a la carte service, but they can't do that until several of their rights contracts expire, which may take a decade or more. I know that I'd personally pay for standalone access to all of ESPN's channels, as I'm currently paying for a whole bunch of other stuff that I rarely ever watch.

quote:

---

Maybe I can see that, but for every man scared to cut the cable to not get sports there is a wife in his house who is scared to cut cable because she can't get Bravo or Lifetime the same way she used to.

It is a more complicated issue than the bullshite politics perspective allows it to be.

---

I understand that. I'm just saying it isn't helping them any. The more sports becomes available outside of them, without the need for any cable, the more pain they will feel regardless of the message they put forth if the other options are better.

quote:

---

It has NOTHING to do with politics. NOTHING. Stop injecting your political team sport bullshite into what are purely economic forces.

I have never heard of anyone getting rid of cable completely because they didn't like one channel, but that is what it would take to get rid of a ESPN that is a basic channel on 90%+ of cable providers.

---

Agree. 100% People aren't canceling ESPN because of politics, its money.

I personally use SlingTV but theres playstation Vue and AT&T/DirectTV just started selling DirectTV Now this week. All offer cheaper ways to access ESPN content than traditional cable company contracts.

If people still don't believe cord cutting is having a major impact on the industry
Every Major Cable TV Company Losing Subscribers - arstechnia

What should be more concerning to the TV industry is growth of Amazon, Netflix, and Youtube. My neighbors kids don't even watch regular TV unless their watching something as a family. All those kids watch is Netflix and Youtube.

ESPN has become too preachy and changed their model a lot but I think people just insert whatever aspect of ESPN angers them and assume that's why the network is struggling.

In reality, media altogether is drastically changing. ESPN, unsuccessfully but with their heads in the right place, is also trying to shift and find a new niche they can cling to. Sportscenter re-runs of the same highlights over and over won't work anymore. With social media and the internet, we can access instantly whichever highlights we want. There are more ways than ever before to watch, listen, read about whatever sport topic we want- there are outlets entirely team or region specific that is more tailored for most sports fans. I think ESPN is smart in transitioning away from the old platform but they haven't been able to find what works yet for them.

Anyway, I think the decline of ESPN has less to do with the most common complaints and more to do with the advance of technology particulary with media.

ETA: Not to mention the growing trend of cable cutting as mentioned above.

quote:

---

It has NOTHING to do with politics. NOTHING. Stop injecting your political team sport bullshite into what are purely economic forces.

I have never heard of anyone getting rid of cable completely because they didn't like one channel, but that is what it would take to get rid of a ESPN that is a basic channel on 90%+ of cable providers.

What people are "fed up with" is a cable bill that goes up every month, or has some promo rate that changes into a frick-you-in-the-arse rate when the promo period is up. People are sick of paying for 300 channels when they watch at most 5. People are sick of how cable providers push more and more options on us (each with a higher price) that we don't want.

The only thing significant related to ESPN in this whole deal is often sports are the hardest thing for a cord cutter to get. Even if you get ESPN you might not get ESPNU or alternate SEC Network without cable, which keeps sports fans locked in cable. Making the decision to drop cable depends on how badly they want to see every football game.

But make no mistake- the SEC Network model is completely fricked in 10 years and it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with market forces that have been moving in a certain direction ever since Youtube was created.

---

You are wrong.

People are dropping cable and going to designer subscriptions for a reason ... and it has very little to do with saving money on cable fees.

HBO is suffering a similar issue because their politics are blatantly bleeding over into their programming and cable subscribers are unsubscribing from their channels because they are tired of the bullshite.

Most of ESPN's programming is offered in packages. Viewers who have no allegiances to ESPN's current programming, because they are tired of the politics ESPN pushes, are tuning-out ... but the SEC Network was a way for ESPN to force subscribers to hold onto additional packages that include ESPNU and ESPNNews, as well as ESPN Classic ... but they are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The "Go" model is the way of the future. It so happens that, right now at least, the WatchESPN, ESPN3 and SECNet+ streaming features are the most profitable of all "Go" models being offered in the world ... right now. And it's strictly because of pure sports programming inventory that has zero political content polluting what viewers are choosing to watch.

With that stated, and it being a fact of the matter, and with increased bandwidth pipes being offered to larger markets in the near future ... the cable/sat world is in trouble, no doubt about it. Why? Because viewers will be able to pick and choose and the SEC, as well as other inventory providers with niche networks and products, will be able to insist upon individual offerings (packages and access) to their potential subscribers.

The SEC Network is a cash cow not only for the 14 member programs, but it is the saving grace for ESPN right now because it anchored what, 71 million subscribers so far, it anchored them into the total ESPN Package for the time being. Meaning, if you want to watch all of the SEC games available and not miss a minute ... then you have to have the full ESPN Sports package with the ability to watch the games (just talking football, baseball and basketball here) on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN2, WatchESPN, ESPN3, the SEC Network and SEC Net+.

But it is inevitable that the leagues, the NCAA, the NFL, MLB, et al., will all see opportunities in the future to break-off from ESPN and stream their product independently ... if they want, and keep all of the revenue rather than having to share with ESPN.

Soon though, very soon, viewers will be able to stream only the shows and sporting events they want ... and they will be able to avoid those who agitate the helloutta them with the politics.

I saw an interview the other day with a bunch of cable provider pundits and they all agreed ... people are tuning-out because of the agenda driven spillover. One, I think he represented DISH, even admitted that they are able to monitor viewer preferences through their Hopper DVR systems and they were amazed to see the stats coming back as far as how many subscribers opted to block MSNBC from their guide menu along with the porn channels. And I think he said the new history channel, or the one that replaced History International, VICE I think it is called, a spinoff of HBO ... people are blocking it. DirecTV admitted the same thing but named some other channels subscribers were blocking.

I mean think about that. Subscribers are actually blocking channels that they are provided ...

That's not cable cutting. That's being tired of the bullshite, plain and simple.