ESPN laying off up to 350, earning forecasts down
The network, which commands the highest price per customer among basic cable channels, has lost more than 4 million subscribers in the past four years, according to researcher SNL Kagan.Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger said on an Aug. 4 conference call that ESPN was experiencing “modest” subscriber losses. The company lowered its projected annual growth in operating income at its cable TV business to mid-single digits percentages, from high-digit percentages in the four-year period through fiscal 2016.
A lot of the talk about the new Big Ten deal in 2018 has revolved around being either the last of the megadeals or the first of a leaner market. The conference contract will almost certainly be the biggest up for bid this decade.
October 21st, 2015 at 2:17 PM ^
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October 22nd, 2015 at 7:20 AM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:37 PM ^
I rarely do anymore. If there is an Outside The Lines or 30 for 30 I'm interested in, I won't watch. Though I do watch SportsCenter sometimes, but not daily. If there is nothing on my DVR to watch, while I'm in the kitchen doing stuff or cleaning my house, I will usually check the ESPN channels first.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:41 PM ^
I think it's a bit generational. Younger people (high school, college, recent college grads not working 60+ hours a week) seem more likely to just have ESPN on tv when they're home and not playing video games. Similarly, older, empty nesters/retirees seem to also just leave it on the TV from time to time. I think where ESPN has lost a lot of people is in that 25-50 range who don't have a lot of downtime to just sit there and watch mind numbing ESPN studio shows. That demographic will turn in for live events, but get their highlights instantly online and have better stuff to do than see talking heads yell at each other.
That's all based on anecdotal evidence, though, so I may be way off...
October 21st, 2015 at 1:33 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:27 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
Now you've made me sad. I guess I'll reserve my spiteful ESPN comment for later today when someone posts about Jemele Hill's rant(s).
October 21st, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^
The inevitable result of screwing your customers for short-term gain, instead of seeking long-term results. The quantity and length of advertisements during sporting events and other "broadcast" TV is entirely out of control- it severely disrupts the flow of watching games, especially when attending them and the result, at least in our household, is that the only thing I watch live is two events: Michigan football and occasionally Seahawks football. Everything else we record so we can skip the ads. Some 30 minute sitcoms are now 30% advertising time.
Eventually people find another way (DVR, cord cutting, streaming, etc.) and the advertisers get wise that the money they are spending on ad time isn't of benefit because people are skipping the ads or not seeing them at all. The solution is simple: Fewer ads and charge more for them.
October 21st, 2015 at 2:39 PM ^
The reason they run ads and run so many of them are because they (along with Fox, CBS, NBC, Turner, etc) have to pay for the ever increasing billions and billions in rights fees they've shelled out to leagues for the right to broadcast their games. Its not short term gain, but rather trying to stay even for both short and long term.
And its not simply a matter of asking advertisers to shell out more -- that's just not how business works in general. They have budgets and bottom lines as well, and while live sports is one of the few good buys left in the ad world, you can only get so much from advertisers. If you ask them for 50% more so you can run 50% fewer ads, they will tell you to fuck off and spend their ad money elsewhere. And then you'll have no ad revenue and be up shit's creek.
The more people that cut the cord, the more ads you're going to see. Either that, or it'll go to a pay per view model and you'll be shelling out $50+ per high demand game.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
I never thought I'd see the day that ESPN is hurting, especially when they have Disney backing them. One thing that doesn't help them is hiring so many former players and coaches who think they can make it as an analyst. Now, some of them have been able to do so, but some either haven't or will fail eventually.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
Star Wars >>>>>> ESPN
One is going to crack $1B, the other is dying a slow, slow, very slow, seriously how is it not dead yet, death. I'm pretty sure this is how business works, but I went to public health school, so....
October 21st, 2015 at 1:18 PM ^
Perhaps you're just engaging in a little hyperbole here, UMAmaizinBlue, but in case you're not: ESPN isn't going to "die." Sure, the inevitable decline of their subscriber base due to cord-cutting (and perhaps un-bundled cable in the future) will force them to streamline and get back to basics -- live sports coverage and news -- sans all the talking-head stupidity. Today's headline means that process is well underway. But their live sports programming alone will be enough to keep them viable.
October 21st, 2015 at 4:22 PM ^
It also means their talent, at every level, should expect to be paid a lot less than what they have been getting during the boom time years and what ESPN can afford to pay for airing rights of all sports will probably go down as well.
They will adjust and move forward, they aren't going anywhere.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
Skip Bayless should be pink slip #1.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:29 PM ^
No way would that happen. They know that asshole causes so much reaction and gets so many viewers. The guy is a very successful troll.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:29 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
You really hope ESPN goes away? They do a phenomenal job covering college football. I really hope ESPN sticks around (and they will).
October 21st, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:29 PM ^
The only reason I watch ESPN is for the games. Sportcenter and all of the other highlight shows have turned into talking heads using terrible one liners, 30 secs of highlights, and bad to awful analysis. I have said it before, but I wish all highlight shows could be like the EPL highlight show. 15 min highlight segments, no talking heads, it's perfect.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
Right - if there is a game I need to watch I go there otherwise never watch it.
I go to Big Ten Network for football recaps beacuse it's not an SEC love fest.
October 21st, 2015 at 10:11 PM ^
The EPL Review show is the best thing on TV; other than Michigan football. Just highlights with the delicious commentary.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
Weird. It's almost like people don't care to watch lengthy, aggressive homer-rants from mediocre sports journalists.
In all seriousness, the quality of the personnel and content at ESPN has gone way downhill. It's much less about delivering informative sports updates now as it is riling up fanbases through a series of outrageous statements and plainly ridiculous arguments.
Can you imagine guys like Stuart Scott, Dan Patrick, Rich Eisen, or Brian Kenny acting like Skip Bayless or Jemele Hill? Hell no. It's like replacing Walter Cronkite with Perez Hilton.
October 21st, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^
read the Vanity Fair piece this week on the death of Grantland. That was already a money loser, and so is 538, and The Undefeated is an unmitigated disaster. The biggest click baits on their website are fantasy sports articles. I'd imagine we're probably going to see less studio shows with high priced "commentators" and more aggregated fantasy sports coverage, live sports that don't have outrageous rights fees, and the like.
October 21st, 2015 at 3:40 PM ^
I'll have to read that piece.
It seems relatively certain that the monetizing of human behavior doesn't always have it's upsides in the long-run (read: McDonald's and Walmart-types).
I've only recently started studying the economics of the internet (and god knows THAT information is extremely valuable), but it's extremely surprising/dismaying to hear that Grantland and 538 aren't profitable.
Meanwhile sites like Bleacher Report are obviously raking in the cash.
It appears, the democratization of the "internet of information" might, overall, be a bad thing, particularly when you realize that democracy RELIES on the "information" itself being delivered in good faith, and it is the very thing being manipulated.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
I suspect that ESPN survives on live programming of the major sports. Everything else is filler. If not for football (and basketball, I guess), their ratings would be somewhere near HGTV or Food Network.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^
Maybe subscribers want sporting news instead of, ya know, the TMZ of sports.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 3:03 PM ^
Not really.
ESPN has the clout and infrastructure that nobody else has, which lets them do things like ESPN3. ESPN3 is the single best sports invention in the last, like, 25 years. I can live in Michigan and watch my alma mater 750 miles away in a totally different region of the country play women's soccer (let alone, you know, football and basketball). ESPN didn't invent the concept of "national TV", they did something even better: make the concept of "national TV" commonplace and uninteresting.
ESPN's sins are myriad, sure. Most of them revolve around the soapification of sports, and their desire to turn literally everything into a talk show (or more accurately, hype show) has ruined Sportscenter, made most of their game broadcasts annoying, spawned wildly obnoxious "personalities", and turned our athletes into automatons. This is not to mention the diktats they force on schedules and matchups, and the influx of money they've sent into college sports, most of which has been used to make them worse.
But the access they provide to previously inaccessible things is not insignificant. In fact it's a tremendous good. A healthy ESPN is in general a good thing, if it means having a great many more options on what we can watch and consume, when we want to consume it. My hope is that the system is moving towards something where I can ditch the $150 or so a month I pay the cable company and replace it with $150 or so a month I can pay sports providers directly. Because here's the deal: nobody's forking over shit to watch Pardon the Interruption or Cold Pizza (thank God that was a short-lived thing). We're all forking it over to watch our favorite teams live. We watch PTI because we don't have anything else to do and we've already spent the money. A healthy ESPN is a good thing if it means I have the option to watch UVA vs. MEAC-snack in basketball, which 15 years ago I couldn't even do in Virginia let alone Michigan.
October 21st, 2015 at 3:59 PM ^
Thanks for your contribution. That is super insightful.
At some level, however, ESPN is also hurting because we (meaning everyone on MgoBlog), are right here. And thus, we're not watching ESPN because, thanks to the internet, we now have a powerful communication tool where we can create, view and absorb eachother's media/analysis.
Of course, if ESPN could provide something mroe compelling, our eyeballs would revert back over to right there.
And people are doing this all over the world in literally every conceivable field/market/niche.
At some level it does allow other people to come in and mediate/understand "sports", which I think is pretty cool.
Let's not forget, when a school-system/city has to lay-off teachers/police officers it's definitely a negative, for education and community. But when ESPN lays people off (not that it isn't unfortunate for those people), but c'mon, those execs are still swimming in cash, they aren't hurting for money, and ESPN is doing/will do just fine. They've just been out-paced/out-innovated by the market, and have no use for those people. It's simple ROI.
The economy that lays ahead of us, in many sectors, will, fortunately or not, be full of this. The internet and interconnectedness of things has really made some skill-sets obsolete, exposed some companies as being dinosaurs, and will require people to keep up-to-date in a much quicker way. It really changed the playing field. In lots of great ways too though!
i.e. We're here!
October 21st, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^
quite some time. Although the specific numbers were not made available, there were a few articles that made these changes already seem like a done deal over the summer. IIRC, one of the articles said that some of the cuts would be to "top talent", you can take that FWIW. But I imagine those workers with high salaries and low viewership would be the first to go. Aside from SportsCenter, NFL Live, College Gameday, 30 for 30, E60 (sometimes) Outside The LInes (sometimes) and actual SPORTS....is there anything else worth watching? The Sports Reporters, garbage. His and Hers, garbage. Dan LeBatard, garbage. Around The Horn, garbage. PTI, garbage. Anything with Skip Bayless and Stephen A, garbage. If I want to watch Skip, I will YouTube clips from his show when athletes are leaving him with egg on his face. This has been a long time coming, get back to the basics.
October 21st, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^
how the Sports Reporters is still on is beyond me.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^
I've found myself watching FS1 more and more.
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October 21st, 2015 at 12:37 PM ^
Hire me as a consultant. Just a sample of what I would do:
1) Fire Skip Bayless, Mark May, Jemele Hill, Trent Dilfer, Mark Schlereth, Chris Carter, Tom Jackson, Stephen A Smith, Dan LeBatard (Plus Many, Many more).
2) There should never, NEVER be more than three people on the screen at once.I can't even remember all 27 people on NFL Sunday mornings. You should have a host, two color guys, and a fantasy guy. That is all.
3) Remember when Sportscenter was a higlights show with excellent writing? Let's do that.
I have about 10 other suggestions (plus a whole slew of people I would fire) but it will cost you $250,000 to get it out of me.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:48 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 2:46 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
Keep Tom Jackson, Le Batard and Schlereth. Those 3 are fine for what they do.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:58 PM ^
I grew up watching him and a less annoying Chris Berman (Yeah, I'm that old) do the highlights of all the games at night. Thanks to those two, I knew there was a University of Louisville.
October 21st, 2015 at 1:06 PM ^
(Well, I've personally never liked Le Batard, but that might just be me. Still, he's popular). I just think ESPN need about 50% less pundits and some new blood. I pretty much know what these guys are going to say before they say it.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
I use to watch ESPN all the time until it became more about strong personalities arguing their controversial opinion and less about showing actual sports highlights. I would rather have highlights of more obscure sports than shows where two guys just argue. Instead of wasting my time with those shows, I just started tuning into the highlights on their app. I wonder how many people have done the same as me and how that has affected their ratings.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:46 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^
But he was probably the biggest loser in their breakup. Simmons was spoiled and had unprecedented support, funding, & exposure from ESPN. He will never see anything close to that again in his career, and he threw it away.
October 21st, 2015 at 12:54 PM ^
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October 21st, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^
Lindsay Czarniak locally here in CT isn't exactly the worst part of my day.
October 21st, 2015 at 1:01 PM ^
She was good friends with my buddy and he introduced me to her when the Tigers were in DC. I was supremely impressed. I never pulled so hard for someone other than me to get with a hot chick.
October 21st, 2015 at 2:09 PM ^
October 21st, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^
ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic, ESPN U, ESPN Deportes, ESPN International, ESPN Australia, ESPN Brasil, ESPN PPV, ESPN Classic Canada, ESPN Films, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Event, Longhorn Network, SEC Network, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio, ESPN Xtra, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Books, X Games.
Maybe they are trying to do too much?
October 21st, 2015 at 1:01 PM ^
Did they finally drop it?
October 21st, 2015 at 1:03 PM ^
ESPN on facebook posted an article on who rounda rousey was dating. What a joke they have become