Despite ESPN Whining, Nielsen Confirms Historic Subscriber Losses For Channel
from the not-just-a-river-in-Egypt dept
Last week, we noted how Disney and ESPN threw a bit of a hissy fit when Nielsen data indicated that ESPN had one of the biggest subscriber losses in company history last month. According to Nielsen's data, ESPN lost 621,000 homes in a single month, as well as losing 607,000 ESPN2 households and 674,000 ESPNU homes. That's of course on the heels of losing more than 7 million subscribers over the last three years or so, thanks largely due to the rise of cord cutting, cord trimming (scaling down your TV package) and the rise of some "skinny bundles" that exclude ESPN from the base channel lineup.ESPN demanded that Nielsen withdraw its numbers, insisting they represented a "dramatic, unexplainable variation" that didn't match ESPN's own numbers. Nielsen obliged, but after conducting an "extensive" review of the numbers found them to be "accurate as originally released." Of course, this shouldn't be a surprise; we've noted how everybody but ESPN appears to have seen the writing on the wall. But instead of adapting to the changing times, ESPN responded by denying that cord cutting was real, and suing companies like Verizon for trying to bring some flexibility to the traditional cable bundle.
Not too surprisingly, ESPN's response in light of Nielsen confirming its numbers was to continue denying the very obvious fact that customers are tired of paying an arm and a leg for sports programming many of them simply don't watch. From an ESPN statement given to the media:
"This most recent snapshot from Nielsen is a historic anomaly for the industry and inconsistent with much more moderated trends observed by other respected third party analysts. It also does not measure DMVPDs and other new distributors and we hope to work with Nielsen to capture this growing market in future reports."Except it's not an "anomaly" at all if you've been watching ESPN's subscriber base drop 2-4% per year right alongside dips in other broadcast ratings. Even sports, long believed to be the untouchable holy grail of television programming, has been suffering a notable decline as younger viewers look for cheaper, more flexible alternatives to the bloated cable bundle. ESPN's response to these challenges? Either outright denial or incorrect claims by company executive John Skinner that these departing customers are old, poor, and not worth keeping anyway.
ESPN is the biggest beneficiary of the old method of bloated, overpriced channel bundles, but like so many broadcast and cable companies, it's too terrified of prematurely harming the existing cable TV cash cow to try anything truly innovative. As a result, the company is seeing historic losses in subscribers, with apparently everybody but ESPN seeing that this adaptation (like a standalone streaming service) will need to come sooner rather than later.
Pretty amazing sign on ESPN's College Gameday. pic.twitter.com/o2NfeMalSf
— Jason Abbruzzese (@JasonAbbruzzese) December 5, 2015
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: cord cutting, espn, ratings, subscribers
Companies: disney, espn, nielsen
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The home team paradigm might be one problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
To be fair...
That's what "It also does not measure DMVPDs and other new distributors and we hope to work with Nielsen to capture this growing market in future reports" means.
It's a legitimate complaint and Nielsen is a well-known dinosaur when it comes to these things. Unfortunately, ESPN will still lose money on ads until the dinosaur figures out how to count.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: To be fair...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Up Next
...or Amazon or Netflix or Hulu... One of the streaming services will be willing to overpay a bit to nail the lid on the coffin of traditional sports broadcasting, and then the floodgates will open. ESPN has held streaming of sports hostage to their broadcast service, but eventually, someone will be willing to pay enough for streaming that ESPN won't be able to match because of the lost subscriber streams.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And For Those of Us Who May Watch One/Two Games a Year
And I make no secret of the fact that I cut my cord back in 1992 and haven't looked back except to pull down and trash the slowly rotting cable more than a decade later.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Perhaps we should apply that logic to company executives who are old, overpaid, and not worth keeping unless you want to ride ESPN to the end, which is coming much faster than they want to admit. Even if he assists in driving ESPN into a smoking crater, he still gets a handy parachute... perhaps if you want them to adapt to changing markets you should tie their pay to performance of the network.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Pretty sure that them going to a straight stand along streaming service would actually violate a lot of their contracts which put them on the base package deals. Which is why they have not tried to push into that arena.
They are stuck in between a rock and a hard place in that respect. Sling TV is their attempt to get into the streaming space.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I know. I love it!
The cable providers are also stuck having to force ESPN on their subscribers which limits their ability to offer better value packages. Which again helps encourages people to drop cable TV all together.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
espn dumping subscribers like me after a bad mexican meal
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If they were realistic, only those that wanted the Sports channels should pay, the real cost could be $25-$50 a month extra to get those Sport channels.
Even SlingTV, ESPN is thrown into the main Bundle and everyone PAYS wither they care about sports or not. It's one reason I don't pay for that. I get most of my TV from the Antenna.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Looking forward to the fallout
Losing their subsidizing viewers means that the people that really want ESPN are going to have to foot the bill, which as it increases will cause more and more will decide they can live without it. Thus ESPN will raise the costs and the vicious circle repeats. Hopefully a huge correction will occur and the ridiculous price of sports rights will become more sensible.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
programvb.com
And I make no secret of the fact that I cut my cord back in 1992 and haven't looked back except to pull down and trash the slowly rotting cable more than a decade later.
http://www.programvb.com/2017/03/channel-frequency-alhidaya-tv.html
http://www.programvb.com/20 17/03/channel-frequency-al-omma-tv.html
http://www.programvb.com/2017/03/channel-frequency-alathar-tv .html
http://www.programvb.com/search/label/%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%AF%20%D9%82%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]