Disney, AT&T in Carriage Dispute Impacting ABC, ESPN
- Thread starter AMike
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Totally agree. That got me going every time I heard it. They should bring it back.
BTW, thats when you had to stand up to turn the channel. But my dad put the box on the end table next to the couch so he could turn the channel while sitting down. Then we got the remote control boxes a couple years later.
So, at Noon, when games start .... they MAY decide to pull the plug ...
These extensions are a good sign, it means they are talking and probably progressing.
These extensions are a good sign, it means they are talking and probably progressing.
I imagine the majority of ESPN employees have DTV for Sunday Ticket. I don’t think Disney wants to pull the plug and will do whatever possible to avoid this.
What I meant was that the overall entire system of selling bundles of linear cable channels would collapse without sports. And frankly, the big 4 broadcast networks would collapse without them too.
Sports is the "killer app" that channel-based TV has that streaming TV doesn't. (The only other thing it still has going for it, really, is live access to Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, which are still very big with the over-50 crowd.) Once you get outside of that -- into all the various forms of entertainment TV like scripted series, reality TV, docs/docu-series, movies, children's programming, etc. -- streaming has just about everything that channel-based TV has, plus lots more. Notice how more and more of the Emmy nominations each year go to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, etc.? Get ready to welcome Disney+, Apple TV+ and HBO Max to the party too, along with new streaming services from NBCUniversal and Discovery.
Is it true that there are cable TV viewers like you who don't care about sports? Sure. But the reality is that if and when all that popular sports content becomes available via streaming, outside of cable TV channels, as has happened with all the other high-value entertainment we watch, the only folks who will be left on traditional cable TV will be older folks who can't or won't make the behavioral shift away from live linear channel-based TV. And I don't think that will be a large enough group to sustain the old model indefinitely.
I'm not sure if there will be many live linear channels, as we think of them today, still in existence come 2030.
That guy's tweets have all been removed.
The mouse got to him.
The problem you are ignoring is ESPN and RSN's need to be part of a larger package. It's they who depend on it much more than the other channels. There isn't a chance they can survive on their own as a selection on CableSat let alone streaming. The number of subscribers who would pay that kind of money, and we are easily talking over $20 and perhaps over $25 a month just for ESPN and RSN's is tiny. RSN's may have a little better chance but only if they consolidate and get each city with no more than two, but better one that carries all the pro sports. It's a double whammy for them, far fewer paying for the service once you are not made to as part of a package so the price has to balloon, and many wanting to subscribe for only a few months something they can't do now.
Until or unless ESPN becomes a sole source for a pro sports a majority of subscribers will never pay what they would need to charge the few who do want it.
You also are forgetting the most watched sports, Pro Football is by far mostly on free TV. MLB has but a few games on ESPN and can be had independently of either RSN's or ESPN. Ditto Basketball, Hockey. Sports is big but that isn't the question. Do you really need ESPN, what if FOX Sports or CBS Sports etc remain affordable?
I can't find anything online either way if they are still fighting or if something was reached.
What’s hogwash about it ?
Sports imo is the one thing , based on how people consume it, that subs would leave for a competitor over.
I’ve been long out of the traditional method of getting tv, but I’d swap to an inferior OTT provider tomorrow if I couldn’t watch my team today.
I’d do the same if I had directv, well before their cutoff that didn’t happen for whatever reason.
I can deal with a tv show that I watch later. I will watch my sports if I’m paying and have a choice.
