ESPN Has Lost 10 Million Viewers Since 2013 to Cord Trimming According to the latest data from Nielsen ESPN lost another 1.5 million subscribers between February and May of this year, meaning that the "worldwide leader in sports" has lost 10 million viewers since 2013. In January ESPN admitted that "cord trimming" (or the act of cutting back your pay TV packages to save money) and the rise of "skinny bundles" are the biggest reasons for the slide, but company executives have consistently downplayed the problems facing ESPN -- and their own failures to adapt to them.

As it stands ESPN contributes a huge amount to soaring cable bills, benefiting hugely from being included in core TV packages despite the fact that 65% of consumers say they'd drop the network if it saved them $8 or so a month ESPN could fight these continued defections by offering a standalone streaming video service. But in the same way most cable providers don't want to offer cheaper, better streaming services that are so compelling they cannibalizing more profitable traditional pay TV subscribers -- ESPN has shown it doesn't want to risk its remaining customers by evolving in such a fashion. "We could sell ESPN, as a standalone product, but we don't believe it to be a good business," ESPN exec John Skipper told attendees of a conference back in February. "We're in 90 million homes," he added (89,465,000 homes now), "so no, we do not have a contemplation now that we would launch as a standalone." The problem is that ESPN's core income comes from bloated cable bundles consumers have shown they're more than a little tired of. But ESPN has, at the same time, been forced to spend countless billions to talk about and air a wide variety of sports programming that's not getting cheaper. That puts ESPN and its refusal to adapt to the streaming age with its own standalone app -- between a bit of a rock and a hard place; a position competitors like The problem is that ESPN's core income comes from bloated cable bundles consumers have shown they're more than a little tired of. But ESPN has, at the same time, been forced to spend countless billions to talk about and air a wide variety of sports programming that's not getting cheaper. That puts ESPN and its refusal to adapt to the streaming age with its own standalone app -- between a bit of a rock and a hard place; a position competitors like Fox Sports were quick to mock despite likely finding themselves in a similar predicament.







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Most recommended from 47 comments



syslock

Premium Member

join:2007-02-03

La La Land 1 edit 33 recommendations syslock Premium Member Cry me a river. No one cares.

Tell Disney we are sick of subsidizing all the sports teams with their heavy handed tactics of having to

pay for a channel most of us don't watch.



Tell Disney we are ticked off on the entire H1B Visa garbage they pulled with their IT staff and we

don't want to give them our money anymore.



Can you see the theme here Disney? JBT

Premium Member

join:2002-12-06

Tucson, AZ 20 recommendations JBT Premium Member Record salaries It seems like athlete salaries are at a record high and continue to go up.

The pain hasn't been felt just yet.

ctaranto

join:2011-12-14

MA 15 recommendations ctaranto Member Whew... Without me cutting the cord, there would only be 9,999,999 lost viewers. Doesn't make for a great headline.



You're welcome, Karl! AkumaKuru

join:2006-03-23

Virginia 14 recommendations AkumaKuru Member good riddance If you stop giving them money, they will have to trim back on their lavish spending. This will in turn also reduce how much they can pay for sports broadcast licensing, which will cause some leagues who drastically overcharge to have to lower their rates or risk not getting the coverage they were looking for, meaning reduced league income, which leads to the players no longer getting 8-9 figure salaries.



I don't see the issue here. seems to be almost self correcting. I welcome dropping ESPN as i have NEVER watched any of their crap willingly, and the times I'm forced to at the local sports bar, its utter garbage. Its overpriced crap thats forced onto the subscribers, that and the local sports franchise fee thats on most peoples bills also.

SuperSpy

join:2012-06-15

Coldwater, MI 11 recommendations SuperSpy Member Good



camper

just visiting this planet

Premium Member

join:2010-03-21

Bethel, CT 8 recommendations camper Premium Member The goose that lays golden eggs ..."We could sell ESPN, as a standalone product, but we don't believe it to be a good business," ESPN exec John Skipper told attendees of a conference back in February...



When an ESPN exec outright admits that they do not intend to adapt to changing market conditions, apparently because the cable providers are under contract to force ESPN upon their customers in core packages, that indicates to me there is something very wrong with the ESPN business model.



Bloomberg TV recently had a segment on ESPN's rising content costs over the next few years. I did a quick look of through bloomberg.com, but couldn't find it. However, from what I remember, the gist of the segment was that ESPN's current contacts require the content costs to have significant increases in the coming years. The numbers were somewhere in the range of increasing from $50B to $58B. That extra $8B won't appear out of thin air.... itguy05

join:2005-06-17

Carlisle, PA 7 recommendations itguy05 Member I did my part I did my part.



Switched from a FIOS plan that had ESPN to a DirecTV Plan that has no ESPN. Don't watch or care much for sports and the savings is great. I'd like some of the channels in the plans that do include ESPN but I'm not going there on principal. amungus

Premium Member

join:2004-11-26

America 6 recommendations amungus Premium Member No surprise When TV costs have gone from $40 to over $100 in less than a decade, people take notice.

blueeyesm

join:2003-09-05

Waterloo, ON 4 recommendations blueeyesm Member ESPN Exec is wrong To say it's not good business isn't quite correct. Selling directly means that he would have to get off is lazy ass and actually do a lot work for a living.



His investors, owners and those who control his purse strings aren't making him do a damned thing. Until they start digging into him to make him change, he'll stay par for the course.



It's not costly for them to start up a channel that would be easily accessible via smart tvs, Roku, what-have-you, etc. He doesn't wanna change the model and do anything he might think is 'risky'.

Anon0d4d1

@teksavvy.com 4 recommendations Anon0d4d1 Anon Soon to come Fee increases to make up for the lack of revenue, which will cause this to accelerate. The drain is a long way off, and the spin is slow right now, but it's coming, guaranteed.

Anon22789

@2607:f2a8.x 4 recommendations Anon22789 Anon Subscribers != Viewers I highly doubt these were all viewers of ESPN. I'm forced to have ESPN and pay for it whether I want it or not. It's part of my package and pretty much every package Cablevision's offers. I'm definitely not a viewer but ESPN apparently thinks I am because their channels are forced on me? I bet they only have a mere fraction of the number of actual viewers vs subscribers. I don't think they know their market or product at all and are just relying on third parties cramming it down people's throats. pandora

Premium Member

join:2001-06-01

Outland 3 recommendations pandora Premium Member ESPN became politicized which hasn't helped. ESPN has become more political, Karl may have missed it, but the ESPN math guru indicated he was wrong about Trump in his estimates because he made up fake statistics. He also does Baseball math, does he lie with that too?