Posted on 11/25/2021 9:10:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Disney-owned ESPN subscribers dropped precipitously in the last 12 months, shrinking another 10% to end fiscal 2021 on Oct. 2 with 76 million US households, according to a Friday SEC filing noted by Deadline.
Within ESPN, college sports-oriented ESPNU fell from 62 million homes in 2020 to 51 million over the last year, while ESPN News slipped from 62 million to 50 million over the same period.
The company said the drop - based on data from Nielsen, includes traditional Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs) such as Comcast and DirectTV, as well as most digital Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming packages.
For reference, ESPN boasted just north of 100 million households almost a decade ago, a significant decay for one of Disney's longtime cornerstones. As Deadline notes, the drop in subscribers highlights one of the biggest conundrums in the media business - traditional TV networks are shedding subscribers due to cord-cutting.
Disney and ESPN execs are keeping a close eye on the subscriber declines and have fortified ESPN+ with increasingly robust programming. The billions at stake from traditional distribution and ad revenue, however, mean a wholesale shift to streaming isn’t likely anytime soon. The company firmly denied reports in October that it was considering a spinoff or even a sale of ESPN.
ESPN was at 84 million households at the end of fiscal 2020. Streaming service ESPN+, meanwhile, ended fiscal 2021 with 17 million subscribers, up 66% from the same time in 2020. It has posted significant growth since being bundled with other Disney offerings.
Disney is scrambling to right the ship, however, adding both ESPN+ and Disney+ to its Hulu Live TV package (along with a $5 per month increase in price), a move which will automatically boost subscriber levels. Hulu has approximately 4 million subscribers, while Hulu + Live TV is one of the leading pay-TV operators in the US, per the report.
The company plans to spend "as much as" $33 billion on programming in fiscal 2022, a 32% increase from the $25 billion outlay in FY2021.
I wouldn’t watch even it was free.
Inflation. Cutting out the fat.
Just show the damn games, and please get rid of women announcers for College Football Games.
They should have the women announcers do jock itch and erectile disfunction commercials the way that SNL parodied those two guys announcing women's sports with feminine hygiene commercials.
-PJ
I always say that it’s time to fire a Florida Head Coach when you have Women Announcers doing their games.
You don’t want 4 hours a day of Stephen A Smith ripping on the Cowboys or pimping LeBron?
Well the Cowboys do deserve to be ripped on, after tonight’s game.
ESPN are shocked that people are less and less inclined to watch open sewer programming.
Funny, you don’t see the word “woke” anywhere in that article.
If there is any evidence that the lizard people are in charge it is the failure of the goWokerful World of Disney to crash and burn.
bookmark
They don’t want White people watching them anyway.
Still good thru March but it felt good to pile on.
I knew their announcers were dirt bags but was unaware of the Disney connection so thank you.
I recall seeing an episode of ‘Dirty Jobs’ dealing with work at a wastewater treatment plant. But that was a single episode. ESPN does not understand that consumers do not want a steady diet of programs along that line.
The only way of making use of ESPN....is to mute the sound, and curtail any ‘show’ which isn’t active sports.
I’m amazed they have 76 million households
It seems all of America is watching that shyte.
Right?
My first reaction was “Well, everything woke turns to s***.”
Who could have predicted that?
I felt bad for Mullen. I liked him.
I liked how he stood by Emery Jones. I thought Mullen was showing the kids that teaching the kids came first, and winning came second. After all, they were in college to learn, and he was teaching lessons. They were expected to win - by learning - but they were there to excel at their chosen field of study, as all college students are.
I think there is something cultural going on with Florida football teams. I can't put my finger on it, but I call it "heart attack football" for a reason. They always come out strong, get cocky, and then collapse. It doesn't matter who the coach is, the pattern repeats.
I'll admit, the collapse was severe this year, but I don't know that I'd put it all on Mullen. It's something about the kids who get recruited there, I think.
Have you seen any of the Campus Reform videos of the students who are asked political awareness questions? It's like watching an old episode of "Jaywalking" from the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I was embarrassed for them; I was embarrassed for the school, my alma mater.
Too many penalties, too many bad throws. The penalties probably lead to the bad throws, so it's a discipline problem at its root cause.
I remember watching a March Madness a few years ago when the kid reporter from Sports Illustrated Kids asked a head coach during the post-game interview whether he thought it was more important for a recruit to have aptitude or attitude.
First, the coach asked the kid who he was reporting for, then he said it was an excellent question that he'd never been asked before (always coaching the kids, even this one), then he said that it was more important to have the right attitude because they can always teach the skills.
I think the Gators' problem is that the kids are coming in with the wrong attitudes, and then they have a morale collapse mid-season when things don't always go their way. And then they get sloppy, and then they stop caring.
I don't know how much of that to put on the head coach, and how much is a systemic problem with the organization.
-PJ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.