ESPN Loses Another 1.5 Million Subscribers

Ben Gooding · June 1, 2016

1 minute ago, Cerebus said:

He's not talking about playback lag he is talking about broadcast lag. The delay between the play happening in real life and the time it takes to get it recorded, encoded, transmitted and then played back. You can see this when you watch a game on tv but the radio feed is ahead of it. Less steps to get to you.

Internet streaming has more steps to get to you so yes it will probably have more broadcast lag than tv or radio.

yes

Aldo · June 1, 2016

I think it takes longer to change a channel on DirectTV than to change a feed in ESPN3

ColoradoEagle · June 1, 2016

2 hours ago, MeanGreenMailbox said:

We're teetering on the decision to cut the cable. These days, we watch nothing other than kids shows and Liga MX. My wife watches the Mexican news and some of the soap operas.

I would look at SlingTV personally. The Fox package has FSSW and you can watch it on up to 3 devices at the same time. The Spanish add-on for $5 has tons of channels; probably even more than what you have right now.

Cerebus · June 1, 2016

Just now, ColoradoEagle said:

I would look at SlingTV personally. The Fox package has FSSW and you can watch it on up to 3 devices at the same time. The Spanish add-on for $5 has tons of channels; probably even more than what you have right now.

Sling allows one stream. PS Vue allows 5. That was a deal breaker for me. No way I am watching Lifetime with the wife.

ColoradoEagle · June 1, 2016

Just now, Cerebus said:

Sling allows one stream. PS Vue allows 5. That was a deal breaker for me. No way I am watching Lifetime with the wife.

The Disney/ABC package allows one stream. The Fox package allows three.

TreeFiddy · June 1, 2016

All this talk about streams is making me a little uncomfortable.

oldguystudent · June 1, 2016

Just now, TreeFiddy said:

All this talk about streams is making me a little uncomfortable.

As long as nobody crosses streams, we're fine.

Cerebus · June 1, 2016

1 minute ago, ColoradoEagle said:

The Disney/ABC package allows one stream. The Fox package allows three.

That is new. The one thing holding me back from Vue is the lack of device support. Roku has code support for it, but the app hasn't been released yet. I have too many tv's to put a PS4 on each of them.

ColoradoEagle · June 1, 2016

Just now, Cerebus said:

That is new. The one thing holding me back from Vue is the lack of device support. Roku has code support for it, but the app hasn't been released yet. I have too many tv's to put a PS4 on each of them.

Yeah, them not having a Roku app makes it a non-starter it for a lot of people. Part of me thinks they're holding back releasing one because the demand is higher than they expected. Also I've heard that developing a Roku app that doesn't use their standard carousel API is pretty complicated.

HoustonEagle · June 1, 2016

Sony Android TV. I have loved streaming ever since.

forevereagle · June 1, 2016

I have several devices through which I can stream. I use my TiVO and Xbox One both for streaming. There are a lot of ways that one can stream and there will be more services popping up over time. My problem with streaming is that there are too many and you have to pay for each one individually and content is everywhere. There needs to be some consolidation in the industry so that there are fewer places to go for content, not every network needs their own subscription service.

TreeFiddy · June 1, 2016

53 minutes ago, forevereagle said:

I have several devices through which I can stream. I use my TiVO and Xbox One both for streaming. There are a lot of ways that one can stream and there will be more services popping up over time. My problem with streaming is that there are too many and you have to pay for each one individually and content is everywhere. There needs to be some consolidation in the industry so that there are fewer places to go for content, not every network needs their own subscription service.

For example, a cable company?

UNTFan23 · June 1, 2016

1 minute ago, TreeFiddy said:

For example, a cable company?

Netflix is an option; so is Hulu.

Aldo · June 1, 2016

I like my TV like I like my food: A la carte. And extremely unhealthy. And too much all at once. And...

forevereagle · June 1, 2016

16 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

For example, a cable company?

No, there are Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go, and some of the individual networks that all have streaming. There are a lot of others that keep popping up. I don't know that we need 50 different $10 per month options. If we can consolidate to 5-10 options, people can pick the ones they want and go from there. Competition is a good thing, too much competition can paralyze a consumer and an industry. A cable company provides no content (until recently), they are just a conduit through which content passes.

ColoradoEagle · June 1, 2016

13 minutes ago, forevereagle said:

No, there are Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go, and some of the individual networks that all have streaming. There are a lot of others that keep popping up. I don't know that we need 50 different $10 per month options. If we can consolidate to 5-10 options, people can pick the ones they want and go from there. Competition is a good thing, too much competition can paralyze a consumer and an industry. A cable company provides no content (until recently), they are just a conduit through which content passes.

The market will determine which ones people want and which ones they don't.

Arkstfan · June 1, 2016

New update to MLB app is supposed to disable push alerts while you are watching. Streams just lag too far behind real time.

ColoradoEagle · June 2, 2016

16 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

New update to MLB app is supposed to disable push alerts while you are watching. Streams just lag too far behind real time.

It would be amazing if they could negotiate something with the teams to get local games on MLB.tv. I've not seen more than a couple innings this season due to that, and the Rangers yanking all OTA broadcasts a couple years ago.

Arkstfan · June 8, 2016

On ‎6‎/‎2‎/‎2016 at 11:33 AM, ColoradoEagle said:

It would be amazing if they could negotiate something with the teams to get local games on MLB.tv. I've not seen more than a couple innings this season due to that, and the Rangers yanking all OTA broadcasts a couple years ago.

New owners of WGN ditched the Cubs last season so I didn't have much choice but subscribe.

Cerebus · April 26, 2017

WE've talked about the huge money hole ESPN is in a few time, but I am reviving this thread to discuss this:

Yahoo Finance: ESPN will cut 100 on-air personalities today

Quote

The 100 people getting cut are all “on-air talent,” a label ESPN uses for TV personalities, radio hosts, and writers who regularly appear on TV and radio. (ESPN says it has 1,000 such people, prior to these cuts.)

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ESPN’s subscriber numbers have dropped steadily, weighing on parent company Disney, forcing a new round of cost-cutting. When Disney demands cuts, ESPN can make those cuts however it chooses.

ESPN had major layoffs in 2015, as it did two years before that, in 2013. Both times, it cut around 300 people. This time around, the network reportedly sought to cut tens of millions of dollars, and decided that ridding itself of big expensive contracts was the way to do it.

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As ESPN’s content strategy evolves and it looks to reach consumers on platforms other than traditional cable, it expects more from its on-air people than ever before.

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But sports television is especially brutal right now: programming costs keep rising, while viewership is falling. Something has to give.

The money train for the G5 is over. CUSA was unlucky enough to be the first G5 to have to redo their contract after the media realized this, but it will affect all G5 conferences.

This will also cause P5 shrinkage, probably to a P4.

edcollopy · April 26, 2017

the money they were putting out for rights to games were just absurd. The landscape will all change in 5-10 years. The NBA caps will again come crashing down, coaches salaries at the college level will start to level off and become more in line w/ a normal world, players will have to make due on 3-5mm for being an average NBA players vs the 12mm they make now. It will have an affect on every sport.

VideoEagle · April 26, 2017

Since Monday I've seen multiple stories on lots of different news sources saying ESPN was going to cut 300. All the stories cited "inside sources." I wonder if ESPN did the "leak information to make it look worse than it's going to be so the actual news won't look as bad" trick.

On a side note, maybe Ed Werder can come back to the DMN.

TreeFiddy · April 26, 2017

It seems like they have way more than 100 that could be cut and most of the sports watching public would not even notice.

greenminer · April 26, 2017

1 hour ago, Cerebus said:

This will also cause P5 shrinkage, probably to a P4.

I wonder who that would be. My first guess (emphasis on guess) is Big East, based on the idea that this is football-driven.

TheTastyGreek · April 26, 2017

9 minutes ago, greenminer said:

I wonder who that would be. My first guess (emphasis on guess) is Big East, based on the idea that this is football-driven.

P5 is Big 10, Big 12, SEC, PAC 12, and ACC. Big East and consolidation from 6 to 5 already went down.

If another conference breaks apart and the choice teams get absorbed into the other 4 conferences, it'll almost certainly be Big 12 or ACC, right? Probably Big 12 since there are fewer schools impacted and the marquee programs that would need to shift to survive are fewer and higher profile.