I need to work and sleep and spend time with friends. TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash.
I can't even spend the attention required to watch TV most times. I find myself just leaving it on in the background and then realized that I've paused it because something was more interesting on my laptop. Sometimes it takes me hours just to get through one episode.
There is also piracy. I don't have cable but I still watched Walking Dead. Which I've also stopped watching. Live TV just seems so pointless. If a show is good I can just pick it up after like 3 seasons and binge it if I want.
Paying $80 a month for TV is just absurd. And paying for sports is even more ridiculous. I like the NBA, and occasionally the NFL during playoffs. But I'll never watch a game live which just spreads 35 minutes of content over 3 hours to maximize ad revenue.
TV had it's heyday, the idea that it isn't on a steady downward decline towards some new steady state is delusion. ESPN in its current form is done. The impact on athletes salaries should be interesting though.
It's possible it's completely unrelated - but I wonder if the constant threats to move teams to different cities if people aren't* willing to fund billion dollar stadiums is related? I know for a lot of casual fans, that's a massive turnoff. You see teams making a ransom in profit year after year, but then they expect the public to fund them above and beyond. The whole thing just feels like it's gotten out of control.
That's completely ignoring what I can only assume will eventually be massive lawsuits around concussions for the NFL.
Right on all points. You touched on it with your laptop comment, but there are also so many other avenues for couch entertainment. There are traditional shows on services like Netflix, but then there is also Twitch, YouTube, etc... that have compelling background content with little to no commercials.
Speaking of commercials, this is what is really killing TV. We have more things competing for our time than ever before, and commercials are the first thing to go. In addition to the time wasting, people also start doing the math. $10/month for Netflix commercial free content or cable $80-$100/month for commercial laden content.
BTW, AMC and TWD are one of the worst offenders with commercial time vs. show time.
>TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash.
>TV had it's heyday
I can tell you don't watch much TV. It's never been better. We're in a golden age of TV, it's just not on ESPN. There have recently been a lot of extremely high quality, hour long dramas, which basically amount to a movie every week. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Wire, arguably Westworld, to name a few.
Yeah, over the past 10 years or so I've swtiched entirely to DVD sets and on-demand streaming. It's not about lowering the bill, it's that the only real edge TV had -- the only reason to put up with all the ads and scheduling bullshit -- was the size of the library. Now that TV-on-DVD and Hulu have gotten big, that's not a problem anymore.
Business publications and their core audience only understand business culture and jargon. So business articles about ESPN focus on historical revenue numbers, and talk about corporate spin-off as a means of "unlocking value", etc.
Technical publications and forums like this are largely populated by young people and early adopters (i.e. the groups most likely to be cord-cutting anyway), and tend not to be sports fans. So these discussions marvel at the fact that there are still dinosaurs who haven't cord-cut yet, and suggest that the remedy is ESPN accelerating migration to a new technical platform.
As someone who actually is an avid sports fan, and socializes with other sports fans, I'm going to throw out a third factor for your consideration. The... product... SUCKS... now! It never gets mentioned, because the "business" audience and the "technical" audience doesn't directly experience it so much. However, applying Occam's Razor, I think changes to product quality are usually the largest factor in changes to product fortunes.
ESPN has been on a long, slow shift from "hard" sports coverage to "soft" entertainment filler for years. However, over the past two years this trend has jolted toward accelerating at a breathtaking pace. For the core audience of sports fans, ESPN is basically little more than TMZ now. It's more discussion of off-field "drama" than actual sport.
Sports fans get tired of fake "QB controversies", manufactured by ESPN talking heads. They get tired of endless analysis of whether African-American franchise athletes like RGIII and Russell Wilson are "black enough". Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem was a legit story for the first week or two, but after 14 straight weeks of talk (none of which touched the underlying substance that Kaepernick is trying to call attention to)... I think sports fans of all political persuasion are long past done hearing about it.
TL;DR - ESPN is a sports network. It has dramatically shifted away from serious sports coverage over the past two years. Their core audience is growing sour on them, and subscriptions are dropping. I believe that everything beyond this is just ancillary factors.
You're spot on. I'm old enough to remember Sports Center when it was Patrick and Olberman. It was smart and witty and done with subtlety and clever cultural references. Now ESPN is 90℅ loudmouth morons yelling at each other about the manufactured controversy of the week. Anything other than the live events is unwatchable.
Likely because buying the rights to broadcast sports is expensive, free-associating talking heads are cheap, and subscriber revenue is down.
It's a vicious cycle.
I'm sure they are well aware that they're behind on the transition to streaming but are stuck with long term existing contracts that don't give them the rights they need.
The leagues want to go direct when they go streaming. Why would they need ESPN as an aggregator?
It's not like Netflix or HBO where you turn it on to browse, you're there to watch a specific game.
I cut cable tv 5 years ago after being a heavy user my whole life. The strangest part was transitioning from watching what was on to choosing what to watch. At first I thought it would be obviously better but it was uncomfortable for a while. After a few months the benefits kicked in and now if I'm ever somewhere with other people watching tv there are a few things that stand out:
Commercials are incredibly intrusive. I am amazed at what I was willing to put up with for so long.
Sports commentary is offensively vapid. Actual comment from the Olympic coverage this last year: "This routine is so difficult it's been called incredibly difficult". Even allowing for getting a little tongue tied on live tv it was painfully bad.
Most other commentary is awful. Listening to explanations filtered through what a reporter is willing to take the time to understand just doesn't compare when are so many good sources from real experts in so many fields online.
Maybe I'm just to the point where I want to yell at kids to stay off my lawn but I don't see how the "TV ecosystem" survives much longer.
Def some physiology behind that. If some random movie is on TV it's like "oh cool this is on," if that same movie is available on demand to watch whenever I want it's "seen it, don't need to watch again."
That and I'm paranoid about everything I watch being tracked and used to profile me.
The problem with ESPN isn't that it's losing subscribers. The problem is that it's losing subscribers while it's tied into incredibly expensive exclusivity contracts with sports leagues, like Major League Baseball or the National Football League. These contracts form the vast majority of ESPN's expenses and give it the vast majority of its content. This means that, unlike other companies, or even other media companies, it's not clear how ESPN can easily and quickly cut costs to match its declining revenue.
Trying to save money is a loser's game in ESPN's business, and in many others too--imagine telling Blockbuster Video to keep the business going by securing cheaper leases. ESPN needs to break its addiction to high cable TV royalties and give people the sports content the way they want to view it, and stop chasing the ridiculous celebrity angle, personal gossip, hashtags, etc.
I've never understood this argument. Contracts are a two-way street; why should the NFL demand ever-increasing fees for a product that's being watched by fewer and fewer people? Network rating have been down for years, it's only recently that ESPN has been following the same trend. At some point the sports leagues will have to realize that declining viewership means smaller contracts, it's just a question of whether ESPN can survive until that day.
On every comment thread about ESPN's subscriber losses, I see comments like these, which are attached to this Post story:
"I stopped watching both ESPN and the NFL because of their liberal politics."
"What a shock.ESPN pushes it's liberal agenda at every turn alienating half your audience and are suprised subscribers are canceling in droves."
"Way more than half. Most ESPN viewers are/were male. You'd expect common sense to prevail at some point and lead them to restrain themselves from committing ratings suicide, but leftists just can't seem to help it."
"ESPN has driven millions of viewers and subscribers away because of their incessant shoving of their leftist politics in our faces. Whenever I want to watch a game on ESPN, I'm instead subjected to lectures about gay "marriage," Castro, alleged "police brutality," and Bruce Jenner's constitutional right to shower with other people's teenage daughters. ESPN can now be easily mistaken for a rerun of the Democratic National Convention, why bother to watch it?"
"Amazing, not one single word about what is by far the biggest reason for ESPN's current demise. It has become PMSNBC. Every talking head, show host, etc. knows that if they do not toe the Liberal fascist party line, they will be Schillinged."
"ESPN has become a liberal voice in politics. I no longer listen but on watch sports. It has failed its mission."
The conservative half of our country is not happy with ESPN.
I don't think the kind of person that says things like that are cord cutters (which you have to be to stop subscribing to ESPN). These are just run of the mill assholes trying to make a point. The real reason ESPN is losing people is young people just aren't signing up for cable anymore.
EDIT:
I should point out that WaPo is pretty much a magnet for right-wing trolling b/c of election and being Bezos-owned. Incendiary comments from the right are par for the course on every WaPo article.
Is it just me, or does it feel like "conservatives" have finally discovered the internet? Over the last few months, it feels like friggin everything has become Obama's fault, or suddenly "leftists" are responsible for X.
I'm not trying to be combative, or start a political argument. I have my own political leanings, sure, but I derive no joy from bitching about it on the internet. I just know that everything I read on a daily basis has veered to the right in the last few months.
Is this a cultural shift, or a demographic that was relatively unheard in this medium asserting itself for the first time? I'm not making a value judgement either way, just wondering.
(Don't get me wrong, shit like Conservapedia has been around for years now. But most of the stuff I read, for better or worse, has been pro-social justice, pro-multiculturalism, etc. until now. Do fewer people buy into that nowadays? Or is what I'm seeing the result of more people participating?)
I think it's fantastic that some companies use their platforms to help the disadvantaged—it's a good use of their resources, in my opinion.
Sometimes platforms and politics don't mix, though. I don't watch ESPN because I want to hear about politics, I watch it because I want to veg out and hear about sports.
Even if I agree with their politics it becomes grating to hear about it 24/7.
The conservative half of our country is not happy with ESPN.
It's not only conservatives, there are more people who want sports prioritized over social politics.
But it is only conservatives voicing specific comments like that. Because they don't have to risk looking like a heretic. If someone has preexisting allegiance to the social positions the coverage framing is aligned with, it's more complicated for them to dissent. Or they might even feel compelled to watch by the fraudulent implecation that ESPN's editorial decisions are made on importance, not that human interest stories are cheaper and easier to produce and can stir up a segment of the audience.
I wonder if there's a case to introduce Boomers to The AV Club "Wiki Wormhole"[1] series to show the internet isn't all memes and cats and uh, things we don't want to show them they can find for themselves if they really want...
Macroeconomically, this is good. Between stadiums and college sports and the Super Bowl we, as Americans, place too much value on sports and direct too much economic (and political) power to its mechanisms. Do not underestimate the power of shifting cultural sands.
There was a great article a few years ago, in the New Yorker [1]. It compared Michael Vick, the exploiter of dogs' eagerness-to-please for profit, with Michael Vick, the football player trying to break out of a low socioeconomic bracket by concussing himself for our enjoyment. It was substitled "how different are dogfighting and football?"
TV is where music was in the early 2000's. Technology, and streaming in particular, has advanced to such an extent that it's a no brainer. Like music executives were, TV producers are archaic and they've presided over its demise because they have had a monopoly which was so good for so long. They've accepted the way things are as the way they will always be without cognition of the change they were witnessing.
TV is dying because you have to pay more money to have no control over the schedule of things you watch, in comparison to streaming.
In the UK, for sports at least, it is even worse. Up to £90/$120 a month for the full TV package yet I can't even watch the soccer game I want to watch it's picked for me, it's absurd. Yet I can go online and watch an international stream of the same game for free.
Spotify emerged and changed the paradigm, the same will happen to TV but with one critical evolution; the extinction of garbage television.
Programming outside of live television is dead, it makes no sense to persist. The film and TV series market have been sewn up. The greed of sporting government/TV corporation has prevented this so far with Live TV but they'll fall or face the same problem the music industry did, which they already are.
The death of satellite Television is the first step to a better, economically efficient, world for consumers.
If you follow the natural path, advertisement on Satellite television may be the most wasteful form of advertisement imaginable. It's a small step to imagine a world where advertisements around a sporting event are tailored specifically to an individual, if you subscription is linked to your Facebook account or Google search history. It therefore must be assumed if more targeted advertisement could be achieved live events would be subsidised to reach the appropriate audience.
Would you rather have advertising that you might be interested in or for soap powder ?
I assume we'd both rather have zero advertising while trying to watch television. I do find a real difference between general broadcast TV adverts, which I just mute, and the advertising on Eurosport (I subscribe to it online though it is on cable/satellite) which is usually more tailored e.g. when I watch cycle racing, many of the ads are for cycling equipment, travel, & sporting goods i general. When I watch motorbike racing it's tyres, motorbikes & equipment etc.
It's like when buying a magazine. I actively look through the adverts in my interior design magazine because they are all interior design releated. Whereas the ads in the TV guide, to pick an example, are actively avoided.
It speaks more about ESPN as a product. It's a terribly inefficient way to get info about your favorite sports teams. Most of the time its just 2 talking heads arguing and going on irrelevant tangents. Its especially bad with their radio station.
Other than live games, ESPN simply isn't competitive with the other ways sports fans follow their teams. You can watch highlights on youtube (without watching an hour long program), follow the good beat writers on their blogs, and get instant updates and breaking news from twitter.
I finally cut the cord thanks to Kodi, Amazon Instant and a DTV receiver. I realized last earlier this year that $150/mo. for TV when everyone in my family was literally watching one channel a piece was a massive waste of money.
I love it. The only things I watch are things I want to watch. I don't have my thoughts and opinions shaped by talking heads anymore. Most of all, I'm spending over $1000/year less. The money I'm saving is enough to pretty much cover the note on the brand new car I just bought. Can you believe that? I literally could buy a car with what I was paying to fill my head up with nonsense.
This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but it is just my opinion.
In the Midwest, the Kappernick debacle, and the downstream protests from nba players, lends itself as a figurative rotten egg on network's reputation. Nobody here disagrees with his motives, but they see his methods as despicable. Furthermore if people speak out against him, they're accused as being racist, which they aren't (false dichotomy). All of this ends up poisoning the brand. Getting constantly accused for something you're not, and then having to be reminded about it when you just want to relax leads to viewers migrating elsewhere.
Earlier this year, ESPN had 10 million fewer subscribers than they had in 2013; they lost 1.5 million of them between February and May of this year[1]. That was months before Colin Kaepernick's first anthem protest in late August.
I'm actually one of the strange ones who's recently added cable tv, but I would jump at the chance to dump ESPN if I could. Garbage sports entertainment with the most annoying people imaginable discussing sports like they're debating federalism.
Ultimately the whole concept of a "channel" like ESPN is an unnecessary path dependence legacy of a time when we only had limited TV bandwith on broadcast spectrum and analog cable systems. In the long run I expect sports fans to be purchasing streaming video access directly from teams or leagues, or perhaps via an aggregator like Apple iTunes / Google Play.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the NFL if TV viewership continues to decline and networks can no longer pay huge amounts for TV rights, ESPN alone pays around $2B/year.
Can ESPN make up the loss of cable viewers by online subscription fees?
"SPN, too, has a streaming app of its own - but it is limited in what cord-cutters can view there. The app reserves its best programming for traditional TV subscribers to prevent too many cable customers from migrating away"
This says a lot to me. They are holding on to the cable dinosaur ways and then crying when people move on to other services.
"Eventually, ESPN may conclude that its subscriber losses are so great that the only way to retain those customers is to begin offering cable content more widely on the app, said Jan Dawson, an analyst at the market research firm Jackdaw Research."
I just signed up for DirectvNow, so I'll see how I end up using it. I thought I would watch it more than I would but I've only seen about 2 episodes in 2 weeks.
I literally had no idea the Olympics had actually started until occasional posts about it showed up on Tumblr. Nor did I realise it was in Rio until then.
The media hegemony broke absolutely the moment we could escape them.
I remember taking pride in having cable tv and enjoying watching live sports on ESPN. Now I've noticed the amount of actual sports coverage has decreased and in its place is their original content. I used to watch tennis tournaments on ESPN2 now those matches have also decreased and moved to their online portal, WatchESPN which still requires a cable tv subscription to access.
If I really want to watch tennis, I need to pay more and subscribe to my cable tv's sports package that includes The Tennis Channel. Maybe I should take up Golf, that's already included in my basic cable subscription.
Maybe the issue is that some guy using YouTube Live in his basement, is able to stream games at a higher quality and with less latency than WatchESPN...
[+] [-] jjaredsimpson|9 years ago|reply
I can't even spend the attention required to watch TV most times. I find myself just leaving it on in the background and then realized that I've paused it because something was more interesting on my laptop. Sometimes it takes me hours just to get through one episode.
There is also piracy. I don't have cable but I still watched Walking Dead. Which I've also stopped watching. Live TV just seems so pointless. If a show is good I can just pick it up after like 3 seasons and binge it if I want.
Paying $80 a month for TV is just absurd. And paying for sports is even more ridiculous. I like the NBA, and occasionally the NFL during playoffs. But I'll never watch a game live which just spreads 35 minutes of content over 3 hours to maximize ad revenue.
TV had it's heyday, the idea that it isn't on a steady downward decline towards some new steady state is delusion. ESPN in its current form is done. The impact on athletes salaries should be interesting though.
[+] [-] tw04|9 years ago|reply
That's completely ignoring what I can only assume will eventually be massive lawsuits around concussions for the NFL.
[+] [-] matwood|9 years ago|reply
Speaking of commercials, this is what is really killing TV. We have more things competing for our time than ever before, and commercials are the first thing to go. In addition to the time wasting, people also start doing the math. $10/month for Netflix commercial free content or cable $80-$100/month for commercial laden content.
BTW, AMC and TWD are one of the worst offenders with commercial time vs. show time.
[+] [-] wcummings|9 years ago|reply
>TV had it's heyday
I can tell you don't watch much TV. It's never been better. We're in a golden age of TV, it's just not on ESPN. There have recently been a lot of extremely high quality, hour long dramas, which basically amount to a movie every week. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Wire, arguably Westworld, to name a few.
[+] [-] forgetsusername|9 years ago|reply
Is it a problem that some of us like sports? I bet you have a "ridiculous" hobby or two that's a complete waste of money.
And I love the mentality of "TV is trash and I can hardly stand it...but I'll steal it anyway."
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StevePerkins|9 years ago|reply
Technical publications and forums like this are largely populated by young people and early adopters (i.e. the groups most likely to be cord-cutting anyway), and tend not to be sports fans. So these discussions marvel at the fact that there are still dinosaurs who haven't cord-cut yet, and suggest that the remedy is ESPN accelerating migration to a new technical platform.
As someone who actually is an avid sports fan, and socializes with other sports fans, I'm going to throw out a third factor for your consideration. The... product... SUCKS... now! It never gets mentioned, because the "business" audience and the "technical" audience doesn't directly experience it so much. However, applying Occam's Razor, I think changes to product quality are usually the largest factor in changes to product fortunes.
ESPN has been on a long, slow shift from "hard" sports coverage to "soft" entertainment filler for years. However, over the past two years this trend has jolted toward accelerating at a breathtaking pace. For the core audience of sports fans, ESPN is basically little more than TMZ now. It's more discussion of off-field "drama" than actual sport.
Sports fans get tired of fake "QB controversies", manufactured by ESPN talking heads. They get tired of endless analysis of whether African-American franchise athletes like RGIII and Russell Wilson are "black enough". Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem was a legit story for the first week or two, but after 14 straight weeks of talk (none of which touched the underlying substance that Kaepernick is trying to call attention to)... I think sports fans of all political persuasion are long past done hearing about it.
TL;DR - ESPN is a sports network. It has dramatically shifted away from serious sports coverage over the past two years. Their core audience is growing sour on them, and subscriptions are dropping. I believe that everything beyond this is just ancillary factors.
[+] [-] ydt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kinofcain|9 years ago|reply
It's a vicious cycle.
I'm sure they are well aware that they're behind on the transition to streaming but are stuck with long term existing contracts that don't give them the rights they need.
The leagues want to go direct when they go streaming. Why would they need ESPN as an aggregator?
It's not like Netflix or HBO where you turn it on to browse, you're there to watch a specific game.
They're really screwed.
[+] [-] vermontdevil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dtzur|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] te_platt|9 years ago|reply
Commercials are incredibly intrusive. I am amazed at what I was willing to put up with for so long.
Sports commentary is offensively vapid. Actual comment from the Olympic coverage this last year: "This routine is so difficult it's been called incredibly difficult". Even allowing for getting a little tongue tied on live tv it was painfully bad.
Most other commentary is awful. Listening to explanations filtered through what a reporter is willing to take the time to understand just doesn't compare when are so many good sources from real experts in so many fields online.
Maybe I'm just to the point where I want to yell at kids to stay off my lawn but I don't see how the "TV ecosystem" survives much longer.
[+] [-] nol13|9 years ago|reply
That and I'm paranoid about everything I watch being tracked and used to profile me.
[+] [-] quanticle|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sk5t|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] in_cahoots|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CptJamesCook|9 years ago|reply
"I stopped watching both ESPN and the NFL because of their liberal politics."
"What a shock.ESPN pushes it's liberal agenda at every turn alienating half your audience and are suprised subscribers are canceling in droves."
"Way more than half. Most ESPN viewers are/were male. You'd expect common sense to prevail at some point and lead them to restrain themselves from committing ratings suicide, but leftists just can't seem to help it."
"ESPN has driven millions of viewers and subscribers away because of their incessant shoving of their leftist politics in our faces. Whenever I want to watch a game on ESPN, I'm instead subjected to lectures about gay "marriage," Castro, alleged "police brutality," and Bruce Jenner's constitutional right to shower with other people's teenage daughters. ESPN can now be easily mistaken for a rerun of the Democratic National Convention, why bother to watch it?"
"Amazing, not one single word about what is by far the biggest reason for ESPN's current demise. It has become PMSNBC. Every talking head, show host, etc. knows that if they do not toe the Liberal fascist party line, they will be Schillinged."
"ESPN has become a liberal voice in politics. I no longer listen but on watch sports. It has failed its mission."
The conservative half of our country is not happy with ESPN.
[+] [-] alistproducer2|9 years ago|reply
EDIT: I should point out that WaPo is pretty much a magnet for right-wing trolling b/c of election and being Bezos-owned. Incendiary comments from the right are par for the course on every WaPo article.
[+] [-] poink|9 years ago|reply
I'm not trying to be combative, or start a political argument. I have my own political leanings, sure, but I derive no joy from bitching about it on the internet. I just know that everything I read on a daily basis has veered to the right in the last few months.
Is this a cultural shift, or a demographic that was relatively unheard in this medium asserting itself for the first time? I'm not making a value judgement either way, just wondering.
(Don't get me wrong, shit like Conservapedia has been around for years now. But most of the stuff I read, for better or worse, has been pro-social justice, pro-multiculturalism, etc. until now. Do fewer people buy into that nowadays? Or is what I'm seeing the result of more people participating?)
[+] [-] barsonme|9 years ago|reply
Sometimes platforms and politics don't mix, though. I don't watch ESPN because I want to hear about politics, I watch it because I want to veg out and hear about sports.
Even if I agree with their politics it becomes grating to hear about it 24/7.
[+] [-] forgottenpass|9 years ago|reply
It's not only conservatives, there are more people who want sports prioritized over social politics.
But it is only conservatives voicing specific comments like that. Because they don't have to risk looking like a heretic. If someone has preexisting allegiance to the social positions the coverage framing is aligned with, it's more complicated for them to dissent. Or they might even feel compelled to watch by the fraudulent implecation that ESPN's editorial decisions are made on importance, not that human interest stories are cheaper and easier to produce and can stir up a segment of the audience.
[+] [-] kimshibal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmcgough|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrismealy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superquest|9 years ago|reply
After 10 years of trying, I had totally given up teaching him to watch YouTube or Netflix.
When I called him a few nights back and asked him what he did that day, he told me he spent all day watching YouTube.
Made me wonder how many other baby boomers might do this once retirement gives them more energy to try new things ...
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|9 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.avclub.com/features/wiki-wormhole/
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|9 years ago|reply
There was a great article a few years ago, in the New Yorker [1]. It compared Michael Vick, the exploiter of dogs' eagerness-to-please for profit, with Michael Vick, the football player trying to break out of a low socioeconomic bracket by concussing himself for our enjoyment. It was substitled "how different are dogfighting and football?"
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play
[+] [-] Trill-I-Am|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisherd|9 years ago|reply
TV is dying because you have to pay more money to have no control over the schedule of things you watch, in comparison to streaming.
In the UK, for sports at least, it is even worse. Up to £90/$120 a month for the full TV package yet I can't even watch the soccer game I want to watch it's picked for me, it's absurd. Yet I can go online and watch an international stream of the same game for free.
Spotify emerged and changed the paradigm, the same will happen to TV but with one critical evolution; the extinction of garbage television.
Programming outside of live television is dead, it makes no sense to persist. The film and TV series market have been sewn up. The greed of sporting government/TV corporation has prevented this so far with Live TV but they'll fall or face the same problem the music industry did, which they already are.
The death of satellite Television is the first step to a better, economically efficient, world for consumers.
If you follow the natural path, advertisement on Satellite television may be the most wasteful form of advertisement imaginable. It's a small step to imagine a world where advertisements around a sporting event are tailored specifically to an individual, if you subscription is linked to your Facebook account or Google search history. It therefore must be assumed if more targeted advertisement could be achieved live events would be subsidised to reach the appropriate audience.
[+] [-] SixSigma|9 years ago|reply
I assume we'd both rather have zero advertising while trying to watch television. I do find a real difference between general broadcast TV adverts, which I just mute, and the advertising on Eurosport (I subscribe to it online though it is on cable/satellite) which is usually more tailored e.g. when I watch cycle racing, many of the ads are for cycling equipment, travel, & sporting goods i general. When I watch motorbike racing it's tyres, motorbikes & equipment etc.
It's like when buying a magazine. I actively look through the adverts in my interior design magazine because they are all interior design releated. Whereas the ads in the TV guide, to pick an example, are actively avoided.
[+] [-] capkutay|9 years ago|reply
Other than live games, ESPN simply isn't competitive with the other ways sports fans follow their teams. You can watch highlights on youtube (without watching an hour long program), follow the good beat writers on their blogs, and get instant updates and breaking news from twitter.
[+] [-] alistproducer2|9 years ago|reply
I love it. The only things I watch are things I want to watch. I don't have my thoughts and opinions shaped by talking heads anymore. Most of all, I'm spending over $1000/year less. The money I'm saving is enough to pretty much cover the note on the brand new car I just bought. Can you believe that? I literally could buy a car with what I was paying to fill my head up with nonsense.
[+] [-] exabrial|9 years ago|reply
In the Midwest, the Kappernick debacle, and the downstream protests from nba players, lends itself as a figurative rotten egg on network's reputation. Nobody here disagrees with his motives, but they see his methods as despicable. Furthermore if people speak out against him, they're accused as being racist, which they aren't (false dichotomy). All of this ends up poisoning the brand. Getting constantly accused for something you're not, and then having to be reminded about it when you just want to relax leads to viewers migrating elsewhere.
[+] [-] edmccard|9 years ago|reply
Earlier this year, ESPN had 10 million fewer subscribers than they had in 2013; they lost 1.5 million of them between February and May of this year[1]. That was months before Colin Kaepernick's first anthem protest in late August.
[1]http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/espn-loses-1-5-million-sub...
[+] [-] chris_7|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strictnein|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cortesoft|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickysielicki|9 years ago|reply
(The "web" link method doesn't work when the title is changed.)
[+] [-] nradov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Johnny555|9 years ago|reply
Can ESPN make up the loss of cable viewers by online subscription fees?
[+] [-] jrnichols|9 years ago|reply
This says a lot to me. They are holding on to the cable dinosaur ways and then crying when people move on to other services.
"Eventually, ESPN may conclude that its subscriber losses are so great that the only way to retain those customers is to begin offering cable content more widely on the app, said Jan Dawson, an analyst at the market research firm Jackdaw Research."
Ding ding ding.
[+] [-] pfarnsworth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidgerard|9 years ago|reply
Radio and television finally admit, in 2016, that they’re competing with the whole vast Internet.
https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/09/29/radio-and-television-final...
I literally had no idea the Olympics had actually started until occasional posts about it showed up on Tumblr. Nor did I realise it was in Rio until then.
The media hegemony broke absolutely the moment we could escape them.
[+] [-] hbcondo714|9 years ago|reply
If I really want to watch tennis, I need to pay more and subscribe to my cable tv's sports package that includes The Tennis Channel. Maybe I should take up Golf, that's already included in my basic cable subscription.
[+] [-] relics443|9 years ago|reply