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

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Remember when we used to watch MTV for all the music videos? And then they started programming reality shows, game shows, etc. Now who watches MTV?

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Exactly

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Exactly

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Apples and pomegranates. If you have basic cable, you have MTV. Same as you have half a dozen ESPN channels. You may not LIKE what you see on MTV these days and wish the talking heads on ESPN would STFU, but if you have cable you still get those channels.

Sick of the editorials.

I love ESPN. I enjoy their format and that I can have a consistent experience across the board. But they're really sandbagging themselves. They're focusing less on the quality of their sports reporting and focusing a little bit too much on the drama. However, one of the main things that's done it for me in recent years was in 2012 when for several weeks they spent about 50% of their airtime talking about Michael Jordan's 50th birthday.

ETA: I'm a liberal and ESPN really lays it on too thick. I'll watch news channels if I want politics, I watch ESPN for sports. I don't need that politicized even if it usually leans to the side I support.

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I need someone to explain the Bruce Jenner thing. I understand it was incredibly stupid. But what I don't understand is why everyone is so upset about it. Why did anyone even watch it? The ESPYs are the dumbest idea in the entire world! Why in the holy hell do we need an awards show for sports?

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I've no idea. I've never watched the show and can't imagine why I would. Can't say I was "upset" about it, though it was really stupid and WTF is "courageous" about getting breast implants and wearing a dress? I digress. Seems like a good spot to drop this, just to fulfill my old curmudgeon quota for the day:

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If people were really dropping ESPN channels for their viewpoints you would think the extra sports package with ESPN U would be first to go.

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That's been explained to you several times. It's because of bundling those packages with niche networks.

If you are too fricking obtuse to grasp that model then just say so and we'll try to draw cartoon coloring book type pictures to dumb it down for you.

Sheeeesh

frick

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ESPN’s slate of uber-opinionated, radically leftist programs such as Around the Horn, First Take, Pardon the Interruption, His & Hers, and others all appear on ESPN or ESPN2

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I mean I could kind of understand all but Around the Horn. How is that radically leftist in any way?

ESPN was at it's greatest when it was Berman, Patrick, and a few of the other originals in a cheesy little studio in Bristol. They broadcast WAC games late on Saturday night between teams nobody gave a damn about except to see a funny style of football where they threw it 50 times a game and the score ended up 49-45 and the team who had the ball last usually won. On other days late at night, you were liable to see sports like curling, ice bike racing, and other weird shite you never saw anywhere else. And it was great TV. It was a bunch of guys watching and talking about sports, not some damn soapbox to spout your philosophy on current foreign policy.

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That's been explained to you several times. It's because of bundling those packages with niche networks.

If you are too fricking obtuse to grasp that model then just say so and we'll try to draw cartoon coloring book type pictures to dumb it down for you.

Sheeeesh

frick

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You know what? frick you you old cock sucker. You and your stupid fricking political agenda can go frick themselves. I have never seen someone so proudly ignorant in the history of the SEC Rant and that is saying a lot. Your arrogance is disgusting and also unfounded.

Now I am going to explain it to you like I would a fricking child, because apparently your old brain is so riddled with fake news bullshite that you can't separate fantasy from fact.

This is the stupid fricking shite you said:

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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

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To break it down, you believe (in fact your dumbass chided me) that the SEC Network is forced onto the ESPN U package to hold up the value of that network.

The reality is that if we look at the largest cable providers in America the majority of the revenue producing areas for the SEC Network has it on basic cable. Now watch out, I am about to use links from real sources not your senile Breitbart bullshite:

Time Warner Cable - "The SEC Network is available to TWC customers nearly everywhere* with the Standard TV tier."

LINK

you can go look at the link for the asterisk areas, but there is no major city in the South on that list. Standard means basic cable mother fricker.

Meanwhile over at Comcast:

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Comcast will distribute the SEC Network to XFINITY TV customers in the SEC states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas) on our Digital Starter level of service.

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LINK

Digital Starter mother fricker. That means at the basic level of service across the entire SEC. That means go frick yourself.

How dare you say you have to dumb something down for me when you obviously read and believe garbage online news and create garbage bullshite theories in your diseased head. I have been posting the truth in this entire thread and your stupid old brain is too far gone to notice.

Newsflash gramps! Most of the country doesn't care about political BS! Most of the country didn't vote in the last election!

We cut our fricking cord because the Chinese have taken all the half decent blue collar jobs and Netflix is a lot fricking cheaper. Or we are a millennial that can't take anything not on demand. Or we are parents of millennials and they set us up with an AppleTV.

The amount of people cutting the cord (as in ALL the cable channels because it's on basic) because of ESPN political leanings is miniscule compared to people who want to save a buck. ESPN is losing subscribers due to cord cutting, while real sports fans are holding tight to their cable service in comparison.

End of fricking story.

And again, because I rarely get this pissed or see someone this wrong on the forum, go frick yourself you old cocksucker.

I was sad the last time you took a break from the Rant, but the next time I would welcome it. The whole place's IQ would go up.

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Problem is that ESPN is too busy covering that Krapernick is on his knees all of the time.

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There's a lot to not like about ESPN, and this is one of those things. But none of that has anything to do with them losing cable subscribers. They're losing cable subscribers at exactly the same rate basic cable is losing subscribers. (I don't actually know that, but I'd be really surprised if it isn't true and can't see how it isn't true, as most all basic cable packages include ESPN. IOW you cannot have cable and not get ESPN.) People aren't giving up basic cable because of ESPN. They're giving it up (along with ESPN) because they have alternatives that are less expensive than their cable service.