“Of course ESPN is an outlier. With a $6.10 subscriber fee (paid by cable companies) ESPN is far and away the most expensive network.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2015/03/25/are-you-willing-to-pay-36-per-month-for-espn/
March 25, 2015
Something's wrong with that figure. When Dish offers ESPN and other popular channels for $29.99 per month, that only leaves $23.89 for Dish to pay several other channels and then realize its own profit. It just doesn't work from a profit and loss point. - Or ESPN and others might take a lesser fee when included in these one and two year introductory offers. And ESPN still sells ads so the fee is not their only source of revenue.
Of course, most channels are paid nothing and do sales jobs have to cable and satellite providers include their channels in a package.
A later thought on this. The writer doesn’t say what a cable or satellite company would get for $6.10 per month. ESPN has at least five stations: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN News and ESPN Classic.
If they get most or all those for $6.10, it almost makes sense, but there’s no way cable and satellite providers could pay $6.10 for the main ESPN channel alone. And I doubt ESPN charges every provider the identical price since contracts renew at different times.