ESPN Looking for 70% Increase in 2012 Negotiatinos

[catnap1972]

If Dish does split sports packages off and charges an additional fee, it'll likely send me and a lot of other sports fans to a competing service. Why pay a premium for sports with Dish if I can get sports for no additional charge with Comcast or Directv or whomever?

But it's OK if I'm forced to pay $7 a month (or whatever) for programming I don't watch just so you can?

 

[mikfort51]

But it's OK if I'm forced to pay $7 a month (or whatever) for programming I don't watch just so you can?

Most likely I don't watch what you watch either so why should I pay for it? Programming packages keep down costs for everyone.

 

[Hall]

Yep... ESPN's revenue stream is 1/4 subs and 3/4ths advertising..... You pay for espn in that budlight your drinking, or that pepsi max you bought. That's the way TV works.

Damn, so all of the cable and satellite providers have been lying to us and getting the media to publish false stories about ESPN asking for higher and higher PROGRAMMING fees ?

Your premise was the way it was SUPPOSED to work 30+ years ago when "cable TV" started up. Consumers wouldn't have to pay very much as advertising would subsidize most of the costs. That didn't work out very well either, did it ?

 

[HanoverPretzel]

IF DISH would jump on this and spin off the sports packs come January ,

Dish promised it's customers no rate increases until 2013. If they "split off" the sports packages and charged extra for them prior to that, raising the price of the total bill for sports fans, I think may of us would consider it a price increase. I have little doubt that the fine print probably legally protects them from a class action lawsuit over those sort of issues ("Channel content of programming packages subject to change at any time."), but a lot of customers would consider it a breach of faith (or, really, an outright broken promise/lie), and be hesitant to continue dealing with Dish past any commitment term. I mean, already, those of us who signed up in January of this year have dealt with one price increased that invalidated the first year advertised rate shown in big bold lettering (x dollars a month for the first year), how many times does Dish want to pull that card?

Don't get me wrong, cable pulls the same sort of garbage. The whole television industry has customer relations issues. That's why a lot of people are "cutting the cord". With sports fans, they kind of have a captive audience for the time being, but that may not last indefinitely. If cable and dish companies try to split sports into a separate package, and the sports networks agree, a condition of that might be that the sports networks can offer their products streaming directly to customers online...

 

[HanoverPretzel]

But it's OK if I'm forced to pay $7 a month (or whatever) for programming I don't watch just so you can?

I don't watch any children's or women's programming. In fact, I'm not even sure whether or not Disney is in my package. But I'm "forced" to pay for all that stuff I don't watch just so other people can. And they have to pay for sports they don't watch. That's just how it works. And it probably allows everyone more potential choices for their dollar, because otherwise I have little doubt that specialty packages would charge more per subscriber.

People who want to split off a separate sports package generally seem to advocate a world where sports fans have to buy a regular programming package (with stuff they don't want to watch) just to be able to pay an extra fee to get the sports package (with stuff they do), while non-sports fans don't have to buy prerequisite channels they don't want. How is that fair?

 

[dare2be]

Your premise was the way it was SUPPOSED to work 30+ years ago when "cable TV" started up. Consumers wouldn't have to pay very much as advertising would subsidize most of the costs. That didn't work out very well either, did it ?

Actually, it was the other way around. The lure to cable TV was that you were paying subscription rates so that you would get limited commercial interruptions on the channels. However, rates continued to climb even as more and more commercials snuck into the programming to the point of being just as commercial-laden as broadcast tv.

 

[Bobby]

Actually, it was the other way around. The lure to cable TV was that you were paying subscription rates so that you would get limited commercial interruptions on the channels. However, rates continued to climb even as more and more commercials snuck into the programming to the point of being just as commercial-laden as broadcast tv.

Not at all.... CableTVs lure was for neighborhood's that had a hard time of getting a decent signal to their TVs. Original CATV was nothing more than a repeat of OTA broadcast TV. Now, HBO, then known as Home Box Office, broke that role by having commercial free uninterrupted movies. The rest is history.

 

[jimdandyvi]

Not at all.... CableTVs lure was for neighborhood's that had a hard time of getting a decent signal to their TVs. Original CATV was nothing more than a repeat of OTA broadcast TV. Now, HBO, then known as Home Box Office, broke that role by having commercial free uninterrupted movies. The rest is history.

\\

You got that right. The CA in CATV originally was the abbreviation for community antenna.

 

[fishman316]

Boycott the mouse.

 

[goaliebob99]

You are missing a huge element in this. Advertising spending is going down, yes even in sports, perhaps some sports is not affected as much as others, but overall spending is going down. Unless the economy rebounds watch for less and less advertising spending. Even Football is suffering with more unsold seats then in a very long time, which means the game is not even broadcast in the area in most cases.
So ESPN will be looking elsewhere to make up the difference. Wonder where.

"ESPN is also expected to begin talks with cable and satellite companies like Comcast about paying more to carry the sports powerhouse and its own highly priced NFL package, along with Disney’s other non-sports channels such as ABC and Disney Channel."

It amazes me how people can chicken little the situation when they have no clue how network programming works.

Says who? I can tell you one thing from seeing the numbers.... They are not going down! That's all I can publicly comment on! :0) It's how the network spends its cash and how frugal with its money in production costs is where they make or break it! Which ESPN is actually cutting down on those costs. I have seen this as a freelancer for them. Aside from that, stop living in the recession world, the economy is rebounding.

 

[goaliebob99]

Damn, so all of the cable and satellite providers have been lying to us and getting the media to publish false stories about ESPN asking for higher and higher PROGRAMMING fees ?

Your premise was the way it was SUPPOSED to work 30+ years ago when "cable TV" started up. Consumers wouldn't have to pay very much as advertising would subsidize most of the costs. That didn't work out very well either, did it ?

You really should listen to the no agenda podcast. Anyhow no I'm not saying they are lying, obviously they are going to squeeze every penny they can from every source. It's actually worked quite well; you should see the rates for a prime time NFL game. People say sports are a bad thing, but it brings in viewers and big money from advertisers. Think about it this way, majority of the programs that bring in viewership is owned or the rights are owned by the mouse. If it’s not the mouse, its Fox. When you have the amount of viewers coming it that the mouse brings, it puts them in a great position for leveraging contracts. Aside from that it’s a free market. The programmers are betting that you will pay the price, and if you won’t there are others who will. Its simple supply and demand... ESPN is the only one who supply’s a product, so they can set the price due to demand. If you’re not willing to pay the price, then you get no product. While ESPN has a financial advantage to get you to sub as they get more in advertisement revenue, they are playing a numbers game that they think they can get for their channel. I'm surprised that some on this board don’t complain about how a WWE PPV has increased, or the fact that a boxing match is like 65 bucks. Keep complaining, If ALA cart comes, programmers can choose to set the price at 65 bucks per channel! Then you will complain about how your being gouged, and will want a couch potato handout from congress about the atrocity of ESPN's prices.


Channel packaging is a great thing, and like all things, price increases over time on all things, like toilet paper, Oil, electronics, and even your cable channel!

 

[dangue]

Channel packaging is a great thing, and like all things, price increases over time on all things, like toilet paper, Oil, electronics, and even your cable channel!

One problem with this statement. You're comparing tv package increases with inflationary increases on all products. Except that package increases have traditionally far outstripped the pace of inflation. Therefore you're not making an apples to apples comparison.

As for the rest of the discussion, I'm going to reserve judgment until we see what happens in actuality. Both sides are throwing suggestions about how sports should be put into the tv programming structure and how prices would be impacted and consumers would benefit. The reality is that without some concrete real world examples with monetary figures attached, this is all speculation and we can argue until we're all blue in the face without proofing with side is right.

That being said, it'd be great if a provider did a sports tier or full a la carte so that we could get an idea of the economics and pricing and make the choice as consumers as we see fit. I don't see that as likely to happen since the cogent creators know that it would be the end of their currently viable family of channels sales model.

A little more cost transparency would be a great thing!

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[whatchel1]

We had a football team?

Most of their revenue comes from commercials run on their channels. Commercial revenue is based on # of subscribers to the channel. If they lose subscribers due to high fees, they are hurting their ad revenue. So expect even longer games to allow more ads. I have season tickets to Texas Tech games. When the game is on Tv, it run at least 30-60 minutes longer.

Well w/ the way things went w/Tubberville we may not have to worry about this happening often.

 

[dare2be]

Not at all.... CableTVs lure was for neighborhood's that had a hard time of getting a decent signal to their TVs. Original CATV was nothing more than a repeat of OTA broadcast TV. Now, HBO, then known as Home Box Office, broke that role by having commercial free uninterrupted movies. The rest is history.

I'm not sure if you missed the point of my post, or were purposefully deflecting away from it. Of course I was not referring to the original use of CATV in 1948, nor its predominant use up until the mid-to-late 70s...I was referring to the influx and lure of national cable channels like MTV, ESPN, CNN, USA, etc. Also, the introduction of premium pay movie channels like HBO and CineMAX is also beside the point. Basic cable channels back then had far fewer commercials than broadcast tv, the trade-off being that subscription rates would cover part or most of the need for advertising revenue. Now, most of the more popular "cable" networks are double-dipping subscription fees and advertising revenue, as compared to the broadcast networks. Most of this phenomenon started after the 1996 Telecommunications Bill that de-regulated corporate media ownership, not coincidentally, when the major broadcast networks started merging with cable network conglomerates, creating a handful of media oligopolies.

Edit: Also, you should have noticed the post I was responding to said 30+ years ago (late 70s - early 80s) , not 60+ years ago (1948).

 

[AntiMoz]

More on the subject from today's Wall St. Journal.

Cable-TV Executives Criticize Cost of ESPN, Other Sports Programming - WSJ.com

 

[chuckster_dude]

More on the subject from today's Wall St. Journal.

Cable-TV Executives Criticize Cost of ESPN, Other Sports Programming - WSJ.com

We'll see if anyone blinks first on this issue. I think DISH will be the first.

What is interesting to me is that this is ESPN driving this through their renewal of their NFL deal. They show 1 game per week on their network. That's it. And if my hometown team is aired, it comes over to my local OTA station. If I really wanted to see a game, a bar is not that far away.

Personally, I don't watch ESPN that much since I'm not interested in the NBA or MLB, and I could live without many college sports. If they went away, my life will go on.

 

[CK SatGuy]

It isn't just ESPN that keeps raising the price of programming (although it is a huge factor) but it's all sports programming in general. Have you heard that the NFL is about to raise the prices of their TV rights to CBS, NBC, and FOX by 60%? NFL Looks to Extend TV Deals - WSJ.com

 

[MikeD-C05]

Dish promised it's customers no rate increases until 2013. If they "split off" the sports packages and charged extra for them prior to that, raising the price of the total bill for sports fans, I think may of us would consider it a price increase. I have little doubt that the fine print probably legally protects them from a class action lawsuit over those sort of issues ("Channel content of programming packages subject to change at any time."), but a lot of customers would consider it a breach of faith (or, really, an outright broken promise/lie), and be hesitant to continue dealing with Dish past any commitment term. I mean, already, those of us who signed up in January of this year have dealt with one price increased that invalidated the first year advertised rate shown in big bold lettering (x dollars a month for the first year), how many times does Dish want to pull that card?

Don't get me wrong, cable pulls the same sort of garbage. The whole television industry has customer relations issues. That's why a lot of people are "cutting the cord". With sports fans, they kind of have a captive audience for the time being, but that may not last indefinitely. If cable and dish companies try to split sports into a separate package, and the sports networks agree, a condition of that might be that the sports networks can offer their products streaming directly to customers online...

We are not even sure that DISH's contract with ESPN is up for negotiation in 2012. It might be early 2013, which would explain why DISH guaranteed no price hikes till then.

 

[MikeD-C05]

It isn't just ESPN that keeps raising the price of programming (although it is a huge factor) but it's all sports programming in general. Have you heard that the NFL is about to raise the prices of their TV rights to CBS, NBC, and FOX by 60%? NFL Looks to Extend TV Deals - WSJ.com

I say spin ALL sports off to a premium pack and REDUCE the price of the programming packs by $10.00 - $15.00 each. This would keep many people from cutting the cord at DISH anyway. DISH should lead the way and be the first in the industry to set an example. Then I'm sure the other satellite and cable companies would follow in droves. This would make the cost of the sports packs go down also because less viewers, means less money, they can ask for in their contract negotiations. Sports people still get their channels and the regular non sports viewers keep their programming and pay less too. Every one wins.

 

[Scherrman]

I know it sounds like the perfect solution for all of you non-sports fans but it is not a realistic solution. There are plenty of customers out there that want an inexpensive package with basic programming that includes ESPN. If you start making customers pay more to get ESPN then Dish will lose those customers. Now if every provider did this I could maybe see it working. I know there are a lot of people that belong to this forum that do not care to pay for sports channels but I feel there is a greater number of customers that prefer to have them included in a basic package.