OT- ESPN had worst month ever losing 621,000 subscribers

[Joey007]

Still have ESPN because of the documentaries and live programming, but honestly their coverage in general isn't that good anymore. It's pretty simple Even taking aside everything with them and the Patriots.

As for cable in general, I wonder what its future is. Gotta wonder if demand services like Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. phase it out all together in a few years. They could definitely do it with better coverage of live sporting events.

 

[Kontradiction]

This must be having an impact too... written on 10/20...

Fox Sports 1 Topped ESPN in Ratings Last Week For the First Time in Its History

Far superior product.

 

[Deus Irae]

i use to watch around the horn all the time but that show has turned into something you would normally see on msnbc.

the late night sportscenter with " svp " is ****ing lame.

SVP went shark jumping a long time ago.

 

[fourhour]

As for cable in general, I wonder what its future is. Gotta wonder if demand services like Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. phase it out all together in a few years. They could definitely do it with better coverage of live sporting events.

Kind of hope so! Really don't like the current system of paying for the privelege of watching sporting events in between advertisements. And then we get to do it all over again when we play on the interwebs....

 

[Deus Irae]

Still have ESPN because of the documentaries and live programming, but honestly their coverage in general isn't that good anymore. It's pretty simple Even taking aside everything with them and the Patriots.

As for cable in general, I wonder what its future is. Gotta wonder if demand services like Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. phase it out all together in a few years. They could definitely do it with better coverage of live sporting events.

Cable, for premium channels that don't run commercials, is great. Cable, for a bunch of channels that run commercials along with lousy programming, is just a waste of your money. A la carte will kill a lot of channels, and I might miss a generous handful of them at the most.

 

[Gumby]

Couldn't have happened to a better bunch of guys.

 

[nabwong]

Good. Except for the 30/30s and live sports the programming sucks.

Live sports that isn't a few select teams aren't any good either. Most monday night games have been awful.

 

[deroc5050]

More and more people are going to be cancelling there cable service. The amount of money I pay is way to high for the amount I use it.

What we need is individual channels to offer a subscription per month. I would probably pick 5 or 6 channels.

That might be an issue for Familys though between what the wife likes and the kids.. I am just a single guy with no worries at this point in time.

If I didn't have a need to watch the Patriots I would cancel my cable service right the **** now.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

They hate their CEO.

 

[pazrul72]

I am a vet tech working at a mobile clinic in CT and had to drive past BSPN head quarters today. They got a big double fisted middle finger that had my two, non sport fan, female coworkers going well now somebody has pissed you off. My response was damn right and I hope it burns to the ground.

 

[ausbacker]

This is because of Kaepernick's national anthem protest... right?

 

[RobertWeathers]

Live sports that isn't a few select teams aren't any good either. Most monday night games have been awful.

Yea I'll watch baseball and soccer. Hell I was watching freaking bowling a few nights ago....

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Still have ESPN because of the documentaries and live programming, but honestly their coverage in general isn't that good anymore. It's pretty simple Even taking aside everything with them and the Patriots.

As for cable in general, I wonder what its future is. Gotta wonder if demand services like Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. phase it out all together in a few years. They could definitely do it with better coverage of live sporting events.

Disney owns and runs ABC/BSPN, (Patty's not innocent, Mr. 1%)Hearst Corp. a minority owner.

Disney's had some winners, to me (National Treasure, Secretariat, Force Awakens) and some God-awful loser decisions (cancelling One Life to Live;and policy let's let the alligators run free in the zoo)

Like Kraft. Winners: Buy the team, personally finance a new stadium, sign Bill Belichick as head coach

And, losers: Accept that we "damaged the league", go along with "dabbling in ownership" Orthwein and keep dressing the players in embarrassing ugly insulting costumes with a fake logo, trumpet his first seven years here as something impressive or any better than anything that ever happened on the field in any previous decade here by lumping those seasons in with the Brady era, endorsing and supporting a maliciously incompetent stooge for Commissioner, a year later accepting the stooge's insane decision that the team broke rules and stooge's implementation of unprecedentedly extreme and inappropriate punishments, accepting and acknowledging the following April the fallacy that we "damaged the league" again, apologizing to his fellow owners instead of attacking them and putting them in their place, failing to see that worthy alumni are inducted into the team's HOF before they pass away, accepting another impossibly over-the-top way incongruous punishment for minor violations the team didn't even commit, to date not realizing or accepting any of his previous errors, other than the insane decision to "put" his "faith in the league"

 

[RecoveringCowboy]

ESPN had it made ten years ago. When any organization has a period of easy profits, they get lax and often arrogant. The town I grew up had a local AM station that had DJs that would hiss off a bunch of viewers in the early 70's when they practically owned the town. In 1976 when an FM station offered their format, they withered on the vine and changed their format 4-5 times, last I recall is they are now an ESPN station.

 

[thenepatsrule]

I guess people are not interested in a 60 minute discussion on what LBJ thinks about the world series or what some athelete wrote on twitter ................ESPN should stop being a 24 hr channel and just be a 1 hr sports highlight show/channel .

 

[cmasspatsfan]

Karma

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Ive stopped watching espn and nfln aside from the one pats game each gets per year. Also stopped visiting their sites, for stats lookup i use pro football reference and yahoo for scores.

 

[Gwedd]

 

[Ochmed Jones]

Ever since Disney bought them.

They went from being mediocre to down right miserable.

They just need to shut it down.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

ESPN Formula: Take huge hostage subscriber numbers to pay for rights to broadcast extremely costly sporting leagues/events. Fill in non sporting event time slots with largely cheap to produce sports yammering. Spill over/trickle down viewer numbers generate substantial ad revenue/GP.

One can't necessarily castigate ESPN for seeing this as their rock solid ongoing path to growth in GP, however and IMHO, the "hostage" part of the equation caused a self destructive insulation in their decision making process. For a time it almost didn't matter what ESPN did. If their decisions/actions were poorly thought out?? So what, they had 5 then 6 then 7 bucks X every cable/sat subscriber to pay for what is now nearing the last 'must watch' TV: live sports and in particular live NFL games. The formula remained intact regardless. ESPN could put crap filler on, they could act without the pretense of fairness, they could alienate various pools of viewership, they could retain and reward the inner circle regardless of the inner circle's general viewership appeal (consider this: while Goodell's face repelled many of the viewership pool ESPN was actually filling in air time with 'look at what a cute kid Goodell was' program). Again little of it mattered because they had the virtually guaranteed formula of the live sports paid for by the hostage subscribers.

Far more than anything the subscriber drop is a money thing. One can get lots of content via the Internet and OTA at a significantly smaller cost than the real cost of a cable/sat package. Yet even with the biggest reason for dropping subscriptions being money, when one is a member of one of the viewership pools ESPN has purposefully alienated, that becomes 'one more nail in the coffin'/an added motivation to get rid of the cable or sat subscription. That certainly is the case with me. I do not want to watch (I don't) or support (I do as a subscriber hostage) ESPN. And when the landscape is right for my own situation I'll jettison my cable subscription. ESPN most definitely won't be the sole reason but it will be a distinct added motivation.