🏈 ESPN down 7M subscribers in 2 years

[ElephantStomp]

The decline is not just ESPN, subscribers for everything cable and satellite is down. Sling, HULU, Netflix, etc are all taking over.

ESPN was late to the Internet party. Bad business lead them to this. Then you add the horrible anchors, and the national enquirer type reporting and it turns people off. Then you add the fans get butt hurt all the time because they think this anchor or that anchor is against their team then they stop watching

 

[rick4bama]

You can't watch on your phone/computer without an ESPN3 account, which you get by either having cable/satellite TV or slingTV account. Perhaps there are other ways, but it's currently all bundled with TV. As far as I know, ESPN has yet to unbundle this from cable/satellite subscribers. So believe the numbers indicate that people are doing without cable/satellite TV or finding lower programming options to the tune of 7m over the last two years.

By the way, Nielsen has been tracking viewing habits via all the mediums for a while now, example here http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/...015-reports/total-audience-report-q1-2015.pdf.

I do miss Bama game that are on the SEC network. I do get the ACC network which is still on regular TV. I drop all my cable last year about two months before the SEC network starter up. SlingTV me being out in the country eat up the bandwidths. I wouldn't even get the 1st quarter before it was all gone. I'm not one that can be around someone while watch a Bama game. I found out it just doesn't work out.

 

[Bigwavedave]

Drop in viewers probably has a lot to do with the cable/satellite prices. The cable companies here in the Jackson Ms area do not have ESPN in the basic package, and neither do the Satellite companiee. If you want ESPN, you have to go to a higher price package. I have Uverse, and they don't offer ESPN in the basic plan, and since Uverse bought Direct TV, ESPN is not in their basic plan either. And, since they all continually raise rates, more people are either cancelling all together, or dropping to the basic plans

 

[TerryP]

Drop in viewers probably has a lot to do with the cable/satellite prices. The cable companies here in the Jackson Ms area do not have ESPN in the basic package, and neither do the Satellite companiee. If you want ESPN, you have to go to a higher price package. I have Uverse, and they don't offer ESPN in the basic plan, and since Uverse bought Direct TV, ESPN is not in their basic plan either. And, since they all continually raise rates, more people are either cancelling all together, or dropping to the basic plans

There's the reason you see the U with fewer subscribers as well. That extra package with Xfinity cost me five bucks a month ... B1G, PAC, NFL, MLB, etc.

And here I am watching the Houston/Navy game on a second monitor.

 

[rick4bama]

There's the reason you see the U with fewer subscribers as well. That extra package with Xfinity cost me five bucks a month ... B1G, PAC, NFL, MLB, etc.

And here I am watching the Houston/Navy game on a second monitor.

Here I'm sitting watching it for free on ABC.

 

[TerryP]

Here I'm sitting watching it for free on ABC.

And you're not watching Bama basketball at the same time with ESPN Goal Line keeping updates handy.

 

[rick4bama]

And you're not watching Bama basketball at the same time with ESPN Goal Line keeping updates handy.

:blackeye: ouch!! Hitting me while I'm down!

 

[JoshB]

Cable/satellite prices are just ridiculous right now. At the moment Im paying $60 a month for internet and $80 for Dish because my fiance's bum ass brother and wife moved in with us (yes I should have my head examined) and he was under contract with Dish and its not even the best or even second or third best package they have. If I can ever kick these fuckers out of our house or his contract runs out Im dumping Dish immediately and just bundling the cable with the internet or going to SlingTV if they add a few more partners that I like. Dish sucks hard.

 

[bamachine]

The cable and sat companies are going to have to switch to an a la carte setup in the near future, if they want to survive. There will be some that stick with it as is but many more are starting to cut the cable. I work for Nielsen and we are seeing so many more homes going the Sling TV, Hulu, HBO Go, etc routes. That is in Alabama, where technology is a little behind other areas of the country. This will affect Nielsen as well, as it is harder to give reliable numbers on that type of viewing.