I agree with you; I think Skipper winds up getting fired over this debacle, and it’s not entirely his fault. Millions of viewers are tired of paying outrageous cable bills for “tiers” of channels they don’t watch. So, they cut the cord and pay for what they want, and that movement is only accelerating.
At the same time, Disney is leaning heavily on ESPN to deliver an even bigger chunk of it profits. There has been some heavy cost-cutting in Bristol over the past 18 months; the sports channel was ordered to cut more than $200 million in expenses to meet revenue and profit projections. But that becomes almost impossible when you’re hemorrhaging subscribers—remember, cable operators pay ESPN $6 per subscriber per month—highest fee in the industry, and that’s a big part of the network’s bottom line.
Not sure Bodenheimer can turn it around, but toning down the PC on-air product might slow the bleeding. Moving MNF back to ABC also makes sense, since that network is also losing viewers by the boatload. The need some sort of program that people will actually tune into.
I do think ESPN needs to do the following besides cutting back to the creeping Leftism in the network:
1. Emphasize a lot more sports on ABC. This means Saturday evening sports on ABC (they've done that now with college football and the NBA very successfully).
2. Put the College Football Playoff and College Football Championship Games on ABC. Ratings will end up being much higher because people who have no cable TV access can watch the games.
3. Bring Monday Night Football back to ABC and negotiate a deal to get more attractive matchups with the games back on ABC. Also, with ABC now broadcasting MNF again, that puts ESPN/ABC into the rotation to get the Super Bowl broadcast on ABC again.