07-10-2015, 01:14 PM
From the Wall Street Journal:
Sports-TV powerhouse ESPN, a profit machine that has long towered over the media landscape, is showing signs of stress as the pay-TV industry goes through an unprecedented period of upheaval.
A decline in subscribers as customers trim their cable bills, coupled with rising content costs and increased competition, has ESPN in belt-tightening mode, people familiar with the situation say.
The company, majority owned by Walt Disney Co., has lost 3.2 million subscribers in a little over a year, according to Nielsen data, as people have “cut the cord” by dropping their cable-TV subscriptions or downgraded to cheaper, slimmed-down TV packages devoid of expensive sports channels like ESPN.
This has implications for any conference network, including the prospective ACC Network.
Sports-TV powerhouse ESPN, a profit machine that has long towered over the media landscape, is showing signs of stress as the pay-TV industry goes through an unprecedented period of upheaval.
A decline in subscribers as customers trim their cable bills, coupled with rising content costs and increased competition, has ESPN in belt-tightening mode, people familiar with the situation say.
The company, majority owned by Walt Disney Co., has lost 3.2 million subscribers in a little over a year, according to Nielsen data, as people have “cut the cord” by dropping their cable-TV subscriptions or downgraded to cheaper, slimmed-down TV packages devoid of expensive sports channels like ESPN.
This has implications for any conference network, including the prospective ACC Network.
