ESPN Sheds 2 Million Subscribers over the past Year

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Variety is reporting that Disney's annual report shows ESPN has lost 2 million subscribers over the past 12 months. The sports juggernaut's subscriber numbers have dropped from 88 million in September 2017 to 86 million in September 2018. The Disney Channel lost 3 million subscribers, Freeform lost 2 million subs, followed by Disney Junior and Disney XD both losing 3 million subscribers. 1 million cord cutters have flocked to the ESPN Plus streaming service.

During Disney's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings announcement earlier this month, Disney execs noted that the rate of subscriber declines slowed between 2017 and 2018, to a drop of 2% compared to 3% between 2016 and 2017. In the fiscal fourth quarter ending Sept. 30, the rate of decline clocked in at 1%, likely reflecting the gains from virtual MVPDs.
 
Krenum said:
ESPN sucks, bunch of jerkoffs gathered around a tv set yelling at each other over sport stats and reliving their golden years...
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Sounds like you just hate sports. Go figure. That has always been part of their broadcasting. What's really killing them is they turned social justice warriors and got offended at every misdeed by athletes and others. They also used is it a political pulpit. They got rid of the worst offenders after they realized most people just want to tune in for scores and talk about sports. Not the extracurricular bullshit. The only thing that might keep them going is the NFL but that has been a shaky agreement since the kneeling...
 
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tacos4me said:
Most of their 'subscribers' don't even want ESPN content in the first place anyway. They've just negotiated it to be bundled with damn near every cable package (at a huge premium).
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Pretty much me. I like some shows on HBO (Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, etc.) I want that? I need the Ultra Premium Platinum Nuclear Package or whatever it's called. To qualify for that, I need 900 channels of which, I might only watch 2 or 3. I want to cord cut, but a couple shows I like, there are no streaming variants.
 
Their MNF coverage is just dreadful. It sucked to endure their banter during the Chiefs / Rams game.
 
Bowman15 said:
Sounds like you just hate sports. Go figure.
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You assumed wrong. I love sports actually. I love Football, I love sitting around on Sunday watching Football with a Pizza. Its great. What I don't like are the jerkoffs on ESPN sitting around yelling stats at each other & measuring each other's dick.
 
Krenum said:
You assumed wrong. I love sports actually. I love Football, I love sitting around on Sunday watching Football with a Pizza. Its great. What I don't like are the jerkoffs on ESPN sitting around yelling stats at each other & measuring each other's dick.
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I have not seen a dick measuring contest. I am pretty sure that if these guys were playing tummy sticks on TV, ratings would be up.
 
doz said:
I have not seen a dick measuring contest. I am pretty sure that if these guys were playing tummy sticks on TV, ratings would be up.
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Tune in for the pregame show, contests abound!
 
Krenum said:
You assumed wrong. I love sports actually. I love Football, I love sitting around on Sunday watching Football with a Pizza. Its great. What I don't like are the jerkoffs on ESPN sitting around yelling stats at each other & measuring each other's dick.
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Sounds more like a personal grudge...that is basically what sports is not this every participant gets an award panzy shit now days.
 
Bowman15 said:
Sounds more like a personal grudge...that is basically what sports is not this every participant gets an award panzy shit now days.
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Personally I would like it if they
Krenum said:
......Alright.
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Hey don't get me wrong, they have their aholes like everything else.

Personally I would like them to show more cheerleaders than sideline commentator stuff. :D
 
Just take a look at their Facebook daily posts. All they post is B.S. Nobody wants B.S drama. We want game highlights, team updates, game scores, trade deals, injury reports and maybe a few other things. That's it!

Hell, I've even seen them post crap about the Kardashians. Wtf?
 
Eshelmen said:
Just take a look at their Facebook daily posts. All they post is B.S. Nobody wants B.S drama. We want game highlights, team updates, game scores, trade deals, injury reports and maybe a few other things. That's it!

Hell, I've even seen them post crap about the Kardashians. Wtf?
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The Kardashians need to just die. My local rock station I listen too even does news about the Kardashians. I honestly don't understand why people give two fucks about them.
 
ESPN needs to stop and evaluate the markets. In fact, all the media companies need to stop and evaluate their markets. ESPN TV can continue, but what they need to do gradually branch out. Offer ESPN over UDP for $3.00 a month, and include something new like ESPN sports statistics and highlights for sports bingers and fantasy players. All ESPN channels including foreign over UDP for $4.00 a month, and total package with ESPN magazine for $5.00. Keep it cheap, make it cheap enough that I wouldn't bother to cancel it, and I'm in. Soon enough ESPN will be growing into a new market, and 20 years from now they'll probably jettison television.
 
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Cut the cord and went to streams and mlb/nhl subscriptions. I really dont care for the armchair/round table discussion shit, it bores me. My impression is its more for the fantasy league enthusiasts. I also dont give a fuck about football so that helps.
 
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The only things I care for on ESPN are college football and formula 1.

The sports discussion shows I just can't stand.

I also remember when MTV used to show music videos so maybe I'm just too old.
 
Bowman15 said:
Personally I would like it if they


Hey don't get me wrong, they have their aholes like everything else.

Personally I would like them to show more cheerleaders than sideline commentator stuff. :D
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If they did that, I might actually watch sports. I couldn't give two shits about the actual game.
 
ESPN took the lowest road out. They're giving a bunch of millionaires more airtime to brainfart around. Pro athletes really don't know much else besides the sport they chose to play. Most of the current commentators can't even speak English properly on tv, never mind broach other topics.

I get it's a loose structure and supposed to be fun , but honestly it feels like there is no professionalism present. Their opinions on anything else except their games, are unnecessary. I liked watching Chris Berman and the older guys, he knew how to anchor the entire nfl lineup. I tuned out for good after the barely coherent woke tv hosts were losing their minds over what Trump said about whatever.
 
tacos4me said:
Most of their 'subscribers' don't even want ESPN content in the first place anyway. They've just negotiated it to be bundled with damn near every cable package (at a huge premium).
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Curious how much of the loss has to do with just plain ol cable cutting vs the reported SJW slant (I have not idea haven't watch espn is years).

Pretty sure it would be hard to tell the difference considering ESPN is on most basic cable packages I think...
 
The fact that the technology and bandwidth exist to deliver this content, on demand, to just about anywhere at any time means that there is going to be a massive shift in how your media works.

You either ride that wave as wild as it may be or watch it fade in the distance while you regret every minute.
 
I've always wanted the option to mute the commentators and just hear the game. I can follow whats happening. On radio it makes sense to listen to a commentator, but the idea of only hearing the crowd and players sounds pretty relaxing.
 
Bowman15 said:
Sounds like you just hate sports. Go figure. That has always been part of their broadcasting. What's really killing them is they turned social justice warriors and got offended at every misdeed by athletes and others. They also used is it a political pulpit. They got rid of the worst offenders after they realized most people just want to tune in for scores and talk about sports. Not the extracurricular bullshit. The only thing that might keep them going is the NFL but that has been a shaky agreement since the kneeling...
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"Just hate sports"

Yeah howabout we go with "just doesn't give a shit about sports"?

In 2018 there are roughly 95 million pay tv subscribers not including OTTP streaming packages.

Most of them are forced into paying $7.21 per month for ESPN being bundled.

Lets look at some ratings:

Superbowl ~111 million viewers more than 100% that's great.. oh... not on ESPN, so... on to what IS on ESPN.

NASCAR end of season race on ESPN 4.11 million viewers. The daytona 500 did 9.7 million. Most are 2.5 million.
Monday night football? about 12 million viewers for ESPN.
ESPN MLS? Averages 272k viewers. The finals bring in about a million.
College football? Biggest rating was 6 million, mnost of the big match ups bring in 3.X million. Most matches are under a million, by a lot.
NBA? average per game is 1.3 million viewers for 2018. The big ones are about 8.
College basketball? average viewership 1.3 million. Best of the year? 4.2 million.
NHL? The playoffs average 1.8 million viewers per game.

So just adding up the PEAKS, you get 42.7 million viewers.

That leave about 49 million subscribers who could care less about sports footing the bill.

We are sick of paying for your entertainment and we are doing something about it. Sports used to look like everyone liked it. The reality was that it was substntially popular content you could crowd out all three OTA networks with and fill up some superstations located IN MARKET for the franchise in question. Now? Not so much. We have choices that compete for TV ratings, and the reality is that more than half of people paying could care less about ESPN. The reality is that at PEAK, a MINIMUM of about 60% of the population could give a crap about any sport in particular and it just goes up from there.

MOST people choose not to spend their time watching sports. Howabout you pay for your own sports.
 
raz-0 said:
"Just hate sports"

Yeah howabout we go with "just doesn't give a shit about sports"?

In 2018 there are roughly 95 million pay tv subscribers not including OTTP streaming packages.

Most of them are forced into paying $7.21 per month for ESPN being bundled.

Lets look at some ratings:

Superbowl ~111 million viewers more than 100% that's great.. oh... not on ESPN, so... on to what IS on ESPN.

NASCAR end of season race on ESPN 4.11 million viewers. The daytona 500 did 9.7 million. Most are 2.5 million.
Monday night football? about 12 million viewers for ESPN.
ESPN MLS? Averages 272k viewers. The finals bring in about a million.
College football? Biggest rating was 6 million, mnost of the big match ups bring in 3.X million. Most matches are under a million, by a lot.
NBA? average per game is 1.3 million viewers for 2018. The big ones are about 8.
College basketball? average viewership 1.3 million. Best of the year? 4.2 million.
NHL? The playoffs average 1.8 million viewers per game.

So just adding up the PEAKS, you get 42.7 million viewers.

That leave about 49 million subscribers who could care less about sports footing the bill.

We are sick of paying for your entertainment and we are doing something about it. Sports used to look like everyone liked it. The reality was that it was substntially popular content you could crowd out all three OTA networks with and fill up some superstations located IN MARKET for the franchise in question. Now? Not so much. We have choices that compete for TV ratings, and the reality is that more than half of people paying could care less about ESPN. The reality is that at PEAK, a MINIMUM of about 60% of the population could give a crap about any sport in particular and it just goes up from there.

MOST people choose not to spend their time watching sports. Howabout you pay for your own sports.
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I do pay for my own sports. It's called NFL Redzone, etc. We all have to pay for a lot of things in life we don't care about. I probably have to pay for Hallmark channels you watch and I don't. Streaming services have packages with channels I don't want as well. There is your reality If you don't like it cut the cord or stop watching altogether and quit your bitching...
 
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