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.
Went woke. Hope they go broke.
They still don’t get it. Stick with Sports and only Sports.
Thank you. You gave me a smile.
“They still don’t get it.”
Yep. Saw a clip of them getting all political on their NBA show right after the Rittenhouse verdict.
“Stephen A Smith”
IMO, Stephen A is playing a character on ESPN. I heard him do a couple of interviews on Mark Levin’s radio show prior to COVID and George Floyd. If he listens to Levin, there’s no way he’s as knee jerk liberal as the character he plays on Disney-ABC-ESPN to keep the millions rolling in.
They still have 76 million subscribers? I think they have a cup half full but they think it is half empty. If they were filling their cup they would not be pushing woke on every show. I have pretty much never been a sports fan and ESPN is a complete waste as far as I am concerned. It’s the people that used to be jocks in high school that like sports.
Disney has the same idea as the post office: keep raising price until customers come back.
They can spend all they want, but they won’t get me back. The only reason I had cable TV was to watch sports, but wokeism killed my interest.
I miss watching tennis, but I watch my grass grow more than ESPN now.
Like many, I grew up on Disney and seeing Walt give intro’s to all his magical shows about American Icons and American History.
Now, with gay Execs running Disney and pushing/peddling/selling all things woke and gay and Lesbian and Tranny the company cannot go broke quick enough for me. I haven’t watched ANYTHING Disney in decades. In fact, my big flat screen TV has been laying face down under my bed for many years. I don’t miss TV at all.
Our version of cancel culture =)
And NFL!
keep pushing your racial agenda and you all at espn can kiss my hairy ass.
Sports, not ideology.
Not some simpleton telling me i am a bad person cause i am an old white guy.
At a time with multiple sports betting apps entering, one might think ESPN would see some leveling off of their declining viewership but their decline remains unabated.
Forced subscription to espn is one of the reasons why i switched to Sling last month..
Brandon Disney as well. It’s brand is forever tarnished.
Its brand (sorry, grammar police)
Bingo.
It’s funny all these articles are written like it’s ESPN. ESPN is a cable network, and cable doesn’t ala carte. CABLE is losing subscribers. ESPN just happens to be along for the ride. Along with all the other sports networks, and the news networks, and everything else.
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